


mise en abyme

by stophit



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Misunderstandings, Soulmates, Weed is Treated as a Normal Part of the University Experience, yes yoon jeonghan is the catalyst once again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:41:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26076607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stophit/pseuds/stophit
Summary: Boo Seungkwan is acupid. Cupids aren't supposed to be stuck inside doing paperwork all day because they couldn't do their jobs properly. Butapparently, between botching a time-sensitive pairing and somehow getting himself tied to a complete stranger, that's all he'll be stuck doing until the end of time.The only good thing is that the stranger’s cute.
Relationships: Boo Seungkwan/Chwe Hansol | Vernon, Choi Seungcheol | S.Coups/Hong Jisoo | Joshua, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 35
Kudos: 159





	1. nunc scio quid sit amor

The hands of the clock tower point straight up to the night sky. The bells sound louder at midnight, twelve strikes echoing in the empty courtyard beneath to shatter the icy stillness of the October air.

Midnight is the perfect time for all things romantic, like Cinderella at the ball or Shrek in the second movie. (In retrospect, midnight was where things were supposed to go wrong, and it was the moments _after_ of playing cleanup that ended up being romantic. But hindsight is 20-20, and Seungkwan’s eyesight is _way_ better than that. So good, in fact, that he has to make that particular observation in retrospect—because he currently can’t think of anything else except his job at hand.)

Everything’s in place. His targets are lined up perfectly for the first time since he got this assignment, and the university’s main courtyard is surprisingly quiet, so it doesn’t matter that he’s off the clock and visible to any non-cupid that might happen to look up at the tallest building on campus.

Boo Seungkwan grits his teeth and lines up his shots, drawing the bowstring.

He’ll get this shot or he’ll _die_ , and that’s partly him being dramatic and partly him crumbling under the weight of the pressure, not that he’ll ever admit the latter. He is a _Boo_ , dammit, and a Boo never falters in their ancestral legacy. But he’s the first Boo to work in a metropolis like Seoul. His oldest sister passed on her offer, and his other sister stayed in Jeju with their father, where neither of them do nearly as much paperwork as he does.

As a child, Seungkwan imagined moving to Seoul for university, turning twenty, then getting his letter from the subdepartment of Seoul’s Ministry of Humanities Research disguised as an internship two years into his studies. Tucked away under a layer of governmental jargon was the _real_ job, where he’d fly around Seoul with his wings, dressed in golds and whites and pinks and reds and _everything_ a cupid should be. He had _dreams_ of being Seoul’s greatest cupid. He wanted to show the big city what a Boo could do when they were taken from Jeju, and that should have been to _thrive_.

Two long years after that letter later, it seemed like the only thing a Boo could do was overwork.

Seungkwan’s shift technically ended two hours ago, and he extended for two more hours of overtime, but it was all worth it. His targets are _finally_ in plain sight after he’s been flying around campus and its direct surroundings for those two extended hours. Normally, assignments come with much more detailed notes about the involved parties and their habits, but the Notes & Information column on his paper was left sparse.

The way his boss’s eyes sparkled as Seungkwan was opening his mouth to inquire made him shut his mouth right there. If it was a test, he was _not_ failing.

He’s positive he can shoot without looking, but he still wants to see this particular shot, because he’s been hunting this not-yet-couple down for a solid _week_ and by God he will see the arrows lodge themselves in their hearts if it’s the last thing he ever sees. He never wastes an arrow. Every shot he’s ever made has landed. He doesn’t shoot anything he knows he can’t hit.

The thin, red thread shimmers from the tip of his arrow, falling to the cold ground before looping back up to the quiver on his back. The bells of the clock tower keep ringing; Cupid’s Blessing is fading from him now that overtime is done and he hasn’t renewed it, and the multicolored strings around campus fade from his vision into the night. He sees the feathers on his wings fall around him, no longer offering him support should he fall. His bow and arrow thrum with the desire to return to nothingness, but hold on only because he wills them to.

It doesn’t matter that Cupid’s Blessing is disappearing. It’s all background noise. He _has_ to make this shot. If he doesn’t shoot Joshua Hong right now, he’ll have to fill out paperwork for cross-continental soulmates, and the American form processing timeframe is _horrid_. Hell on earth exists, and it’s bureaucracy.

As the last bell chimes, the string about to slip from his fingers, he hears a voice from directly behind him.

“What the fuck? Where did _you_ come from—”

Seungkwan jumps. To the twelfth ring, the arrow slips from his fingers, deviating from its course.

His shot misses.

He _misses_.

The arrow rematerializes in his quiver for him to try again, but it’s too late. Without Cupid’s Blessing, the arrow is visible to any onlooker for just a second, long enough for Joshua and Choi Seungcheol to notice and look in his direction.

No, no no. Seungkwan is wearing red and white today, and he’ll stick out like a sore thumb up here in the spire of the clock tower. The _tallest building on campus_ _._ Visible from everywhere. He ducks under the railing, grabbing for his phone. He thinks about punching in another request for overtime, but he has a midterm tomorrow, and he can’t afford to use up any more of his sleep. He’s already down to three hours of sleep a night this past week because of _this pair_.

Once his bow and quiver fade away, he figures it’s safe to curl up into a ball and scream into his knees. This can’t be real. He was _right there_. The muffled yell echoes in the university courtyard, and it makes him sober up, _fast_. He shouldn’t be able to hear that echo; on the clock, he occupies no space, reflects no light, creates no sound.

For all intents and purposes, he’s human again. And even though no one’s allowed to be up here in the clock tower, he’s not alone.

Seungkwan whips his head up and almost immediately makes eye contact with the owner of the mysterious voice that startled him into failing. Another guy around his age huddles in the opposite corner of the clock tower’s spire. His eyes are wide, hands thrown up in the air. “Cool bow and arrow,” he says, much too calm compared to how Seungkwan is feeling.

Yeah, that’s the voice. That’s the same one that wrecked his concentration and _ruined his job_.

His nuclear anger must show, because the guy looks more nervous. He better be. “Are you in archery club? I have a friend in it. Isn’t it illegal to… be aiming at people?” His eyes dart to the floor hatch. “I’m going to go now. Don’t kill me.”

“What are you doing here?” Seungkwan tries his hardest not to shriek—but everything is coming down around him, and now he has someone he can blame, and this isn’t the best time or place to let out steam but he _can’t take it anymore_. “Do you _know what you’ve done_?!”

“Sorry, man, I just wanted a place to smoke, I’ll leave,” he says in quick succession, and the fact that he can keep his voice steady while he’s witnessed something that shouldn’t make sense to ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the population _infuriates_ Seungkwan even more. Why is he the only one freaking out?

He’s shrieking now. He can hear his shrill tone echo in the courtyard again. “You wanted to smoke inside a _locked clock tower_ at midnight on a Monday?”

“It wasn’t locked when I got to the underground tunnel, but I didn’t know I’d end up here, promise. I just wanted to wander. But I’ve always wanted to be up here, just once before I graduated.” He starts creeping closer to the hatch, like Seungkwan won’t notice. “It seemed like a cool place to be.”

Seungkwan pinches the bridge of his nose. Nothing matters anymore. Cupids are allowed to be up here, so if anyone sees them, he can wiggle them out of this situation. He’s strongly considering letting this random guy take the heat, though.

Standing, he points an accusing finger at him. He’s probably obnoxiously bright in this little number, but he doesn’t even _care_ anymore. “You know what? I don’t have time for this. I have to clean the mess _you_ made. Just never speak to me ever again. Don’t even look at me if you see me on campus.”

He likes to think his stomping is _very_ dignified, that he’s a force not to be reckoned with as he makes his way to the center of the spire where the hatch is. But as he sends one last withering glare to the stranger before he can go home to scream in peace, a bullet flies past him, grazing his ear. He knows that it’s not just any bullet; Seungkwan watches helplessly as it enters straight into the stranger’s heart without breaking skin, absorbing into his chest.

This is _the_ last thing he needs. With a fury truly unmatched in his twenty-two years of life, he spins around on his heel, ready to scan the roofs for _Yoon Jeonghan_ _._ He knows that bullet. He knows that marksmanship.

He’s there, finds him perched on top of Chemistry I across from the clock tower, but it’s too late. Yoon Jeonghan fires a second bullet, and unlike Seungkwan’s arrows, the bullets are almost instant.

There’s no time for him to jump out of the way. The bullet goes straight into his heart, sinking in painlessly—but Seungkwan knows it’s there. If these bullets are tied, they’re well and truly _fucked_.

The cupids shoot at each other sometimes when they’re bored and have extra ammunition, but never with a normal human around, and _never_ with their strings attached. Off the clock, Seungkwan can’t confirm the presence of strings, but Jeonghan’s shot was too accurate. His precision always comes with intent.

In shock, he looks to the roof of the chem building again. This is a nightmare. This must truly and honestly be a nightmare, and Seungkwan can’t wake up. Yoon Jeonghan, still sporting his pure white wings, wiggles his fingers and mouths a message with a wry smile:

 _Oops_.

Seungkwan is going to explode. He is going to jump off this spire and fly full speed to the other roof and _throttle_ him, witnesses be damned. He’s sure every cupid at Locus Amoenus Seoul’s wanted to, and if any of them said otherwise, he knew they’d be lying. He’d be doing them all a favor.

He doesn’t realize he’s moving until there’s a pair of arms around his waist, and he bites out the words before he even realizes he’s saying them—“Unhand me this instant, let me go, what are you _doing_ —”

“What are _you_ doing?!” the stranger hisses back, and Seungkwan realizes that _oh_ , he’s on the railing, one leg over the edge. He’s fully visible, off the clock, no wings, the whole shebang.

Great. He’s got no way to explain this, either.

The guy sounds _terrified_. “Okay, let’s breathe. Don’t do this. I know I walked in on something really weird here, but there’s gotta be a better way, dude—”

Seungkwan lets out a laugh like he’s been punched in the gut, deflating in the stranger’s arms enough that the stranger drags him away and lays him down on the cold floor of the spire. Nothing matters anymore, Seungkwan thinks, especially since the stranger turns out to be unfairly handsome. This angle isn’t even flattering. Why does he look so good when he plops down cross-legged next to Seungkwan and hovers over him?

“I’m Hansol,” the stranger says, and the name nags at some memory in the back of Seungkwan’s mind that he can’t extract from the distress. “And you?” In his peripheral, he sees Hansol frown in thought. “Hold on, do I know you from somewhere?”

It doesn’t matter. Seungkwan is a failure to the Boo name. Joshua Hong is going to return to America in less than a week, and after that, not a single one of next week’s work hours can be dedicated to Numen Adest because of cross-continental _paperwork_. Not a single hour dedicated to the _one thing_ everyone knows cupids for. Not a single hour for matchmaking or love stories. Seungkwan already feels his soul wither away at the thought of just one week without stringing people’s fates together.

It’s the end of the world. He laughs. It sounds desperate and gross.

“You good?” Hansol pierces through his soliloquy.

“Ha,” he says. The _paperwork_!

“Wait, you’re Seokmin-hyung’s friend, aren’t you? The one from Archery club?”

“Everyone’s Seokmin-hyung’s friend. I’ve been his roommate for the past two years.” He thinks he might abandon it all and say _You’ll never guess, but Seokmin-hyung’s a cupid, too._ Burn _all_ the bridges. Fail the test his boss gave him, fail his midterm tomorrow, reveal a government secret or two to some stoner. Perfect.

“Right, okay.” Hansol’s voice is way too calm, and he can’t get angry about it anymore. He feels drained. “Should I call an ambulance or something? Take you to the hospital?”

“Take me anywhere but my apartment and you’re next over the railing.” He still has _some_ energy left as long as he taps into his self-preservation instinct, it seems.

“Okay, nothing rash. I’ll call Seokmin-hyung to take you home. I know classes aren’t easy on everyone,” Hansol starts saying, and Seungkwan tunes it out.

He himself knows what happened, and he doesn’t need to explain anything to some stranger; the most he has to do is wait for Hansol to call Seokmin, go home, and then meet him awkwardly in the future since they have a mutual friend. But he can at least get away with not having to say anything about cupids.

“If you ever need to talk about anything with anyone, you can add me to the list.” He’s still talking. Seungkwan can’t even get annoyed, because it seems like he genuinely, honestly _cares_. Another reason he doesn’t want to get Hansol involved—the entire misunderstanding is just embarrassing. “Any friend of Seokmin-hyung is a friend of mine.”

“Again, Seokmin-hyung is friends with everyone,” Seungkwan mutters. He rubs his hands over his face, resisting the urge to cry. “The paperwork. The _paperwork_. What have you done?”

His ramblings barely make sense to himself anymore, let alone to a complete stranger, but it doesn’t matter. Hansol’s already treating him with kid gloves. It’s almost comforting in a way that this random stranger is more concerned about making sure Seungkwan’s okay instead of the very obvious weaponry he was just using to aim at people. Even though Hansol shouldn’t be hearing or seeing _any_ of this, he’s seemingly kind enough that Seungkwan can visibly show his frustration to a complete stranger before he can get himself together again properly.

He takes a deep breath and gathers himself, closing his eyes. With Cupid’s Blessing fully faded, he can feel the October chill settle against his skin, sinking its teeth to his bone. He’s not dressed for this weather, and with the adrenaline of another _failed attempt_ dying down, he feels colder than ever.

In the middle of calling Seokmin, Hansol looks back over to him. Seungkwan refuses to look at him, but he can’t help it when, without moving the phone from his ear or saying anything about it, he takes off his jacket and drapes it over Seungkwan, trying to smile at him. The jacket is warm, a little heavy, and it makes the gravity of the situation sink in even more until tears threaten to prick at his eyes.

Hansol hangs up and puts a hand on Seungkwan’s forehead. Carefully, slowly, gently, he brushes his hair away from where it’s falling into his eyes. It’s sweet. Unnecessary, but sweet. Without waiting for Seungkwan to react, he starts talking about something or another, clearly not expecting an answer. He doesn’t seem used to talking for the sake of talking, something just to fill the space; his stories are mundane but made nonsensical through his scattered storytelling, and he starts and stops too many times to lull Seungkwan into a real rest, but it’s good background noise.

He can’t afford to rest anymore. He needs to deal with two separate problems now.

One: he does _not_ want to do Cross-Continental paperwork. He’d rather expose the existence of cupids and Locus Amoenus, hiding in the Ministry of Humanities Research, to Hansol and have him swear absolute secrecy than fill out _any more paperwork_ , because telling Hansol means he’ll have to file paperwork for that, too _._ And it means he’s going to have to hunt down Joshua Hong before he leaves some time before next week.

Two: Hansol himself. Why Yoon Jeonghan decided to start their little shooting match when Seungkwan was off the clock _and_ Hansol was there, he doesn’t know, but he’s too exhausted to get caught up in the _why_. He’ll confront Jeonghan later, but for now, he needs to figure out a way to get Hansol to his rightful soulmate from the Big Book of Soulmates—because It’s a shame, Seungkwan thinks under Hansol’s steady, deep voice. He seems sweet enough, and he wouldn’t want to steal him away from his rightful soulmate because he got caught in a literal crossfire.

He doesn’t know how much time passes before Seokmin arrives at the top of the clock tower. Hansol didn’t give him very detailed instructions, but the clock tower’s a common high ground for the youngest division of Seoul’s cupids, where Seungkwan falls. Most of them go to this university or were alumni, Seokmin included. He’s been up here plenty of times.

Seokmin’s always been bad at hiding his emotions, no matter what they are. Even in the dim light, Seungkwan can see shock, plain on his face. “I didn’t try to jump, Seokmin-hyung. It’s fine.”

He still looks like he’s about to cry, anyway. He should know better; he knows Seungkwan’s doing overtime tonight. Maybe he sees Hansol and decided to act. He _did_ land that main part in the university’s musical last year. He rushes over to hug Seungkwan, and then he starts _actually_ crying. Acting is out of the question, then.

Seungkwan pats his back. “Jeez, don’t be a big baby, hyung,” he mumbles. He sounds faraway, caught between telling Seokmin everything that happened and trying not to expose himself to Hansol. “Nothing actually happened.”

“I know work’s been hard”—he can say that again—“but you can always talk to me, Seungkwannie. Hansol, help me bring him home—”

“I really don’t need it,” Seungkwan grumbles. His complaints are ignored by Seokmin, who opts instead to drag him up into a standing position with Hansol as support. He sighs, giving in to his friend’s warmth and this admittedly cute stranger’s grip. He’ll deal with the fact that Jeonghan’s fucked him over when he gets back to the apartment.

It’s a long subway ride back when Seokmin is silently fussing over him. Hansol sits across from him, staring the entire time, and he thinks he should be more uncomfortable by that—but Seokmin doesn’t point it out at all, like it’s normal for him. He’s _too tired_ for any of this. He’s even too tired to protest when Seokmin insists Hansol stay over for all of them to get some rest and process, because Seungkwan wants to pass out, wake up, and drag Seokmin into a room with a door they can close so they can talk about it.

Seungkwan pretends to sleep on the couch, but he actually does drift off while waiting for the possibility of Hansol leaving. He’s disoriented when he wakes up, and it takes him a second to regain his bearings.

Hansol is curled up in one of the armchairs, head tilted at an uncomfortable angle; the supportive gesture would be sweet if it wasn’t completely misplaced. Seokmin joined Seungkwan at some point during the night to fall asleep on top of him, and that’s cute—again, if this wasn’t a whole misunderstanding.

He nudges Seokmin awake, feeling bad about it when Seokmin raises his head and reveals that he looks like he was crying before falling asleep. All the more reason he should clean this mess up. “Kitchen,” he hisses as Seokmin blinks to wakefulness.

“Are you hungry—”

“No, we need to talk.” He looks pointedly at Hansol. _“Privately_.”

After a second, Seokmin gets up and drags his feet to the kitchen, giving him a curious but concerned look. Seungkwan scratches the back of his head as he hauls himself into a sitting position. Three hours of sleep for classes _and_ a midterm, right after doing _another_ overtime running cleanup. He told Jihoon that he _could_ handle this job, no matter how hard it was, and he wasn’t about to prove him wrong.

Seokmin turns on the stove light, and Seungkwan hops onto the counter. Hansol’s asleep. This is fine. It’ll take less than a minute to explain. “Okay. Huge misunderstanding. Hansol caught me just as my shift ended, and also Jeonghan _shot at me_ from a different roof, and I wanted to throttle him, so I tried to fly out without thinking. Hansol could see the entire thing, and I totally forgot I also didn’t have my wings. That’s it.” That’s not the entire truth, but it’s close enough.

Seokmin’s mouth turns into a small _o_ , and then he nods, because when Jeonghan’s involved, everything makes sense. “You really need to be more careful, Seungkwannie,” he says, breathing out a relieved sigh. “Maybe it’s kind of lucky that Hansol was there to stop you from jumping out.”

“Maybe, except that Jeonghan was on the job, which means he took all the luck instead. He was also apparently bored enough to try and start a fight with me, but he missed and got Hansol in the heart.” There’s the rest of the truth slipping out.

At that, Seokmin bites his lip. “Jeonghan doesn’t miss.”

Seungkwan falters. He knows that. As much as he despises that Jeonghan’s destroyed the sanctity of the cupids by using a damn _sniper rifle_ , he can’t deny that he’s an amazing shot. Seokmin’s method is unconventional, too—direct contact with the involved parties—but at least that’s still romantic and not, like, Mingyu’s harpoons (which are _horrifying_ ). “Maybe not, but he’s not careless about his job.”

Seokmin makes a hesitating noise and looks away, like he’s scared of Seungkwan’s reaction. “If he shot Hansol… If I wasn’t off the clock, I’d check if you two were actually… _tied_.”

With a scoff, he shakes his head. “Cupids are immune, it doesn’t matter. I just don’t know what’ll happen to Hansol. Not that it matters, because no matter what, I’ll have to fill out paperwork—I’ll finish my current thing first before dealing with Hansol getting shot—”

“Seungkwan.” Seokmin’s voice drops to a whisper, which is how he realizes that at some point, their voices had risen. He’d gotten too heated, and Seokmin just followed along, as he always does.

“What?”

Seokmin purses his lips toward the doorway.

Hansol’s woken up and has been standing there for who knows how long. “What’s going on?” His voice is groggy with sleep, but he sounds almost _fearful_. “Hyung, why are _you_ talking about shooting like it’s not a big deal? What do you mean I got shot?” He looks Seungkwan up and down, realization dawning openly on his face. “Where did your bow and arrow go? There was nothing left behind in the tower. I checked.”

All those questions have answers that he isn’t allowed to hear. He looks at Seokmin, who’s supposed to be the hyung, but he’s already looking at Seungkwan like he should explain.

They stare each other down for a few seconds before he turns away from Hansol, muttering quickly to Seokmin instead. “There’s protocol for memory wipes, aren’t there?”

“But there’s still the paperwork. And your pride,” Seokmin hisses back, just as fast.

“I’m still here.” The sleepiness is fading from Hansol’s voice, and Seungkwan recoils with the realization that he’s _angry_. It’s only been a few hours since they’ve met, but Hansol’s been nothing but kind and gentle, his timbre a low murmur of concern. There’s a sharp edge to his previously warm syllables, something lurking beneath the surface. “Seokmin-hyung, what’s all of this about? The shooting, the weapons, the memory wiping—is there something illegal?”

Seungkwan throws his hands up to stop him and his coming storm. “No, listen. It’s going to sound completely unbelievable, but it’ll be an explanation. You asked.” He shuts his eyes, puts his face in his hands, and lets out a tiny scream.

He’ll have to fill out paperwork regardless now that Hansol’s involved and _shouldn’t_ know anything about the cupids. Seungkwan’s already signing his own death warrant (and isn’t _that_ paperwork in and of itself), but at the very least, he can explain things to Hansol to placate him. Put him out of mind for a couple of days while he prevents Cross-Contintential.

Under the Ministry of Humanities Research, grouped with the rest of the social innovation departments, exists a black box of a practice on a need-to-know basis. For any government worker that comes upon them, they learn the practice’s name as Reinforcement of Social Harmonics. It’s wordy, and usually cupids will just say _Locus Amoenus_ , the term used by every one of them in every country around the world.

As he explains everything, he feels dread sink in. Locus Amoenus would be completely inaccessible from non-cupids if things like this didn’t happen, and since Hansol can’t just fly in and phase through the walls, they’ll have to go through the disused, cramped entrance, disguised as a high-level clearance janitor’s closet. Turns out that those with wings get used to open skies and breathing room, and none of Locus Amoenus’s non-cupid-friendly entrances help the claustrophobia they all seem to develop.

The thought of the tunnel is almost enough for Seungkwan to regret the decision to explain everything, but Hansol hasn’t gotten up and left the apartment yet, despite his clear skepticism.

He doesn’t have to believe all of it. He just has to believe _enough_ that Seungkwan can leave him alone for a few days and finish the Joshua–Seungcheol job first. Besides, Hansol’s not dense. He’s observant in his own quiet way, watching Seungkwan with eyes that are much too sharp—in a way that _Jeonghan_ can get at times when he doesn’t have his shit-eating grin on.

He explains maybe more than he should, but he can’t help but tell him everything under that gaze. It’s like Hansol’s picking him apart, waiting for him to slip up and say something inconsistent, looking to say with certainty that Seungkwan’s full of shit. He even starts rambling about his family history, his father and sister in Locus Amoenus Jeju, enough that Seokmin falls asleep. He’s heard the story of his family too many times.

The silence that falls over them when he finishes is deafening. His ears ring, searching for the missing sound of his voice. He suddenly feels exhausted, dropping down on the couch. Hansol hasn’t looked away from him for a single second. “I’ve got a shift tomorrow,” Seungkwan says just to hear himself again. He checks the clock. “In two hours,” he amends, feeling the bags under his eyes grow ten times in size. “I’ll wake you up for it so you can see me disappear, but I can’t bring you to Locus Amoenus until after my shift because _you_ already messed with my plans.”

Hansol blinks once before crossing his arms, still unconvinced. “I messed up your plans to shoot at two people on campus with your bow and arrow and connect them with the red string of fate. You, Boo Seungkwan, who Seokmin-hyung knows from Archery club.”

The drab tone irritates him. He clenches his fist and counts to ten, taking a deep breath. _He doesn’t know anything. He still doesn’t believe you. Of course he sounds like he thinks you’re talking shit._ “Red string of fate is so _archaic_ , but yes, sure, fine. That’s the easiest way to explain it, never mind the entire explanation I gave you about how there’s still a lot of free will involved in both parties.”

“Is it really free will if the population at large doesn’t know this is happening?”

Seokmin coughs, and both of them turn to him. “Yeesh, I went to bed and when I woke up you two were still going at it!” His voice is gentle, and Seungkwan regrets waking him up with the argument. “Let’s just focus on the fact that this is still real and we have to do something about Hansol knowing this information, okay?”

“I won’t say anything,” Hansol says. “This is an elaborate system, and I don’t believe any of it, but it’s too internally consistent. Just do what you gotta do and forget about me.”

Seungkwan pauses. He explained just to shut him up, and he got it—Hansol won’t say anything, so why does he want to keep arguing and prove him _wrong_? “If you still don’t believe it, then watch me disappear out of thin air in two hours—”

“One and a half,” Seokmin whispers.

“In one and a half hours, then. Is that enough for you?” Frustration bubbles to its peak, and with a sinking feeling, he presses the heels of his palm into his eyes, inhaling sharply. He’s too sleep deprived, too stressed between the job and his schoolwork, that it all wears down his guard in front of this complete stranger until he nearly starts crying.

Immediately, Seokmin puts an arm around him, and that’s the last weight on his shoulders to make everything collapse onto him. He’s only been a cupid for two years and it already feels like for every job he’s taken, everything that could have gone wrong did. It’s a good thing that every Locus Amoenus is so small—he’s a trusted rookie, he works hard enough that he continues to be given an infinite amount of grace to fix when a job goes wrong. But for some reason, it’s all crumbling tonight, in the face of the one major rule that every Locus Amoenus has: _don’t involve a non-cupid unless absolutely necessary_.

“I just—I’m never going to get a break,” he manages to say, trying to keep his voice steady and leaning on Seokmin for support. “Instead, this is my big climax before Jihoon finally fires me and my family disowns me for ruining the Boo name—”

“I’ve met your family, they would _never_ —”

“And just to rub the salt in the wound, after filling out Cross-Continental, I have to fill out all the paperwork for involving a _human_. I’m going to be the laughing stock of Reinforcement of Social Harmonics.” He takes a deep breath. He takes another. He feels like he’s drowning. “It’s fine. I don’t need a Xanax tonight. It’s fine. I just need to get through tomorrow, do my classes, get the midterm, and then—and then sleep for—for an hour.” He breathes out and it sounds like a whimper.

Seungkwan puts his head between his legs and shakes his head. He gives up on trying not to cry in front of Hansol. He does _not_ give up on everything else. “I’m not crying,” he hisses out when Seokmin leaves his side. “A Boo doesn’t cry about their work.”

He lifts his head to glare at Hansol, but unshed tears make his vision blurry. The anger and skepticism has melted away from Hansol’s face, but that concern from earlier is making him even more aggravated now. Hansol raises his hands. “It still sounds like you’re high off your ass, but I know for a fact I didn’t even get to smoke before you…” He frowns before muttering, “Before you… materialized out of thin air in the clock tower. And I know Seokmin-hyung’s pretty gullible, but…” He bites his lip. “This still doesn’t make sense.”

“I know.” Seungkwan refuses to show any weakness, but his voice cracks.

“But I’ll wait for your shift to start. You seem legitimately distressed about this. The least I can do is hear you out,” he says as Seokmin comes back with a glass of water and a Xanax. “One last thing, though.”

“Shoot,” Seungkwan says before giggling high-pitched at his own joke. (He slams back the glass of water with the capsule in his mouth.)

Hansol doesn’t seem fazed by it at all. It suddenly feels like a blessing. “So one of your… coworkers shot at both of us? With his magical cupid…”

“Sniper rifle,” he scoffs. He breathes like there’s water in his lungs, but he tries again. “Yeah. But that’s a non-problem. Cupids can’t get tied.” Even though the way the bullet absorbed into both of their hearts is nagging at him.

What a tragedy it had felt like at first; the common thread among each and every cupid in every Locus Amoenus is that they’re all _romantics_ , hopeless or otherwise. And yet, by accepting the bow and arrow, they gave up the ability to fall into their own fateful love story. But his parents weren’t tied, and he would much rather do this and take his chances without strings. When he asked his father about whether cupids could get tied, he only smiled and ruffled Seungkwan’s hair, and so Seungkwan gave up all hope of a meet-cute orchestrated by the fates themselves.

Besides, the strings aren’t even all romantic. They’re even delightfully _color-coded_. The romantic implications of _red string of fate_ aren’t entirely unfounded, but what they’re really doing as cupids is nudging people that would otherwise be strangers toward each other to become best friends for life, platonic nemeses, or encouraging found families. They’re basically scheduling meetings, or having people see each other in new lights, and whatever happens from there is past anyone’s jurisdiction.

The strings fade after people meet and form a connection, for the most part. Some of the romantic red ones stay for a while, bolstered by the connection, but they all disappear to become invisible and reinforce social fabrics.

Seungkwan sighs. “The problem here isn’t that we’re tied, because that’s impossible. The problem is that you stuck your nose into these things and now I have to do _paperwork_ because I had to explain everything to you or you wouldn’t let it go.” He looks away. “And you’re nice enough. Even if we’re not tied, it doesn’t change the fact that you’ve still got one half of a thread lodged in you because of Jeonghan, and I won’t have you taken away from whoever you’re supposed to meet.”

The Xanax is working, but with the sleep deprivation, it makes him numb instead of just plain tired. “Besides, most people don’t take kindly to the whole soulmates thing. Decider of our own fates and whatnot. So wiping your memory would be for the best, if you can wait a few days on it.”

Hansol doesn’t exactly look happy, but he still hasn’t gotten up and left. He nods. “I don’t really like it, but it would be the same as… I don’t know, a bunch of blind dates going on at the same time where the people don’t even know they’re going on blind dates.”

Seungkwan smiles. It doesn’t meet his eyes. “Don’t hurt yourself thinking about it. Seokmin-hyung’s right. I’ll finish this job, you stay out of the way, and I’ll only have to do one set of paperwork at the end of this for your sake.”

Hansol’s snort is very ungraceful, but Seungkwan’s just numb enough to find that he likes the sound.

* * *

Five minutes before six in the morning, Seungkwan finishes dressing in his Tuesday best, head to toe in blush pink but for a white button-down and gold filigree _everywhere_. Cupids aren’t supposed to have uniforms, especially since they become visible the second their shift is over, but Seungkwan _likes_ dressing up, dammit. Learning that lesson in real time won’t stop him from putting on his personal emotional support uniform.

“Looking good, Seungkwannie!” Seokmin cheers, biting back a yawn. He was awake watching over both Hansol and Seungkwan as they slept.

“Sleep after this, Seokmin-hyung,” he says. “Sorry for getting you in all this.”

Seokmin shakes his head, leaning over to wake Hansol. “Don’t have it be another thing for you to worry about. Just stay safe.”

Hansol makes a groaning noise as he blinks awake, squinting his eyes at Seungkwan. It’s just a little infuriating how he should be just as sleep-deprived as Seungkwan and yet he still looks like a treat, groggy but not cranky. He tilts his head. His hair is sticking up in every direction. “You’re dressed for the day. Although when you said _cupid_ , I was expecting a huge diaper and half-nakedness.”

Seungkwan makes an offended noise as Seokmin starts chortling. “Excuse you? How dare you. I’m _always_ presentable.”

He crosses his arms just as the little chime on his watch starts ringing. He looks out the window of the apartment, and Seokmin follows suit; now that he’s on the clock, he can see strings of every color, shape, and size strung around the apartment buildings, out of windows and across streets. University towns are messier than anything in Jeju, his father told him. _You’ll like being busier._

At the familiar sight of strings glittering in the early morning sun, some of the tension eases from him, flowing out into his wings to unfurl them. “I’m off, then,” he says, feeling the quiver appear between his shoulder blades, his bow at his side.

Seokmin hums. “Take care.”

Hansol looks wide awake now, making the bags under his eyes more pronounced. “Is he—he’s still here?”

Seungkwan can hear the smile in Seokmin’s voice as he narrates his actions. “He’s opening the window,” he says, grinning when Seungkwan looks back to see Hansol, eyes wide and disbelieving.

“It opened by itself,” he says.

“Definitely not. He doesn’t even need to do that. We can just phase through physical objects. He’s making a point.”

“Stubborn,” Hansol says—and if Seungkwan’s not mistaken, there’s awe in that. He preens.

He winks at Seokmin, feeling lighter than ever, and then leaps out into the air. The morning air is still, but his wings rustle the windchime on their balcony as he flies past.

* * *

It’s a fruitless day. The thing about Seoul, and the thing about cupids existing for as long as there have been human communities, is that once upon a time, homing magic was enough. That sense ran in Seungkwan’s family, but it could be learned by anyone with the predisposition for it—Seungkwan’s the only one in Locus Amoenus Seoul that didn’t undergo orientation before entering, already briefed on the basics from growing up in an enthusiastic family. Communities used to be smaller, and there was less confusion to the senses.

It took a special kind of tenacity to want to work in a metropolis like Seoul, which was always alive and changing. Not everyone chose to work with the same government that sent them a letter, and not everyone was a point-and-shoot cupid, although everyone had to accept Numen Adest as a part of their daily cupid life for at least two years before making a dedicated switch. Jeonghan himself hadn’t been on the field for at least a year last Seungkwan checked, holing himself up in the lab instead. Omnia Mutantur is where he rightfully belongs, the lab in which he created that blasphemous sniper rifle, but Seungkwan can’t deny that some of the other technologies he and the other lab cupids developed make Seoul easier to manage without overloading their senses.

However, their prototypes generally leave a lot to be desired. In the middle of tying up some backlog assignments shared among all the Seoul cupids, Jeonghan brought him to Locus Amoenus to outfit him with a new version of the radar and homing device. The radar’s location now updates every ten minutes instead of needing manual confirmation, which Seungkwan didn’t realize for at least an hour of trying to track someone down for the sake of experimentation instead of _doing his job_.

The lab’s added a new function that filters out anyone whose names don’t match what’s written in The Book of Connections, fading them out in Seungkwan’s vision—which was cool at first, until it glitched out and only filtered by last name. Which meant that for most of his jobs, he still had most of Seoul bright and ready.

He tells Jeonghan all this before leaving the tech behind and taking his chances with his intuition, but unlinking with the technology gives him a headache instead. In the end, he sulks on the spire of the clock tower and shoots down easy pairs for Mingyu, who’s busy this week and the next doing tech week for the play.

 _It’s nice and romantic_ , Mingyu teased him. _A cute love story. You’d like it if you weren’t caught inside doing Cross-Continental paperwork_. Seungkwan didn’t hear anything else about the play because Seokmin had to hold him back from stabbing him with a non-tied arrow. (So, a regular one.)

Seungkwan will never, _ever_ admit that he’s overwhelmed. He’s taking more jobs than a rookie should—and two years is still _rookie_ level—especially one that’s still insisting on getting an education, even though receiving a letter from Locus Amoenus is a guaranteed career for life.

With the backlog mostly whittled down, he flies down to the courtyard to find a quiet place to calm his senses down and center himself for his midterm. He gawks as his feet touch the ground; right in front of him is Choi Seungcheol’s back, but it’s too close to the end of his shift to find Joshua Hong and tie them without risking the strings fading, and he can’t request emergency overtime because of his midterm.

He nearly trips over himself to catch up, flying over while making faces behind him and screaming about how unfair this timing is. A quick peek over his shoulder reveals that he’s planning to meeting up with Joshua later that night. He cries out with relief, until Seungcheol types _7pm_ _works for both of us? It won’t be longer than five minutes._

Seungkwan’s Econ midterm ends at 7:30. He has no idea where they’ll be after that, because _then_ he sees the time in the top right corner of Seungcheol’s phone. He has sixty seconds before he becomes visible again.

He blinks. Fifty-nine. Fifty-eight.

He lets out one last call of distress before giving himself a running start in the direction of his midterm’s building, opening his wings and pushing them to their limits. Less than a minute before his shift ends, and less than fifteen before his stupid first-year Econ midterm, the one he put off because he wanted to see how long he could get away with it and is biting him in the ass now.

He aims straight into the ground for the study room in the dingy basement that he _knows_ is always unoccupied because of how depressing it is. He doesn’t like it very much, either—trapped in the ground with only concrete around him, and not a single window for him to tell the time of day—but he only needs it as a landing point. Get in, materialize, ignore the skittering feeling of walls closing in, and get _out_.

The depressing study room is in sight as the seconds tick down, and he does _not_ want to cry because he’s already cried once today and that’s his _quota_ —but for the first time in almost four years of education, this study room is occupied, and it’s too late for him to switch course. His wings fade just as he spreads them wide to slow his approach, feathers dissipating in a flurry behind him, but he’s still moving too fast for a soft landing.

With a cry, he puts his hands in front of him, scraping them against the very physical concrete wall of the study room. The rest of his body follows, and he just barely manages to turn his head to the side, scraping only his cheek.

As he sinks to the ground, his arrows spill out from the quiver behind him, his bow clattering across the ground. All of his scrapes are red raw, but not open and bleeding; it’s a small miracle, he thinks with a groan. The fluorescents in this room are giving out, and the flickering isn’t helping his headache.

He rolls over just in time to see all of his weaponry disappear, which is hopefully one less explanation he needs to give with whoever’s in this study room. He stumbles to his feet. Other person in the room be damned—he needs to get to the lockers on the fourth floor and change out of whatever he’s wearing.

“Seungkwan?”

Oh, thank _God_.

Best case scenario would’ve been any of the other cupids, as improbable as that was; Jeonghan graduated three years ago, and Seokmin earlier this year. He’d even take _Mingyu_ , who’s taking a part-time approach with classes unlike Jeonghan and Seungkwan. But without those three, he’s thankful that it’s _Hansol_ that’s here, staring at him through circle frames, fingers paused over his laptop.

Seungkwan is so breathless with relief that laughter is the only way for him to get air back in his lungs. His knees give out underneath him. “It’s _you_. Hansol. It’s—I was—I was _not_ ready to go back to Locus Amoenus and say I had _another_ human to—I saw you when I was flying in at max speed, but I didn’t recognize you because of the glasses.”

“Well, I’m convinced now,” Hansol says, matter-of-factly. He pushes his glasses up into his hair. “I saw you _and_ your weapons materialize in and out of thin air three times.”

“Good. See? Thank God. Okay.” He takes a deep breath in and exhales it as a near-scream.

Perhaps out of pity, Hansol asks, “Did you find the guys?” He does so in a small voice, like he’s trying to approach a wounded animal.

“No,” he grits out. “Guy One has to set a meetup with Guy Two, which is great, but it’s in the middle of my midterm.” As he speaks, he looks at the clock, which is the least brutalist-inspired thing in this room. “My midterm that starts in seven minutes, and this is a _basement_ study room, and my locker is on the _fourth floor_ , and the midterm is on the _second floor_ , and—”

“Breathe,” Hansol says. Seungkwan starts hyperventilating. “Not like that.”

“I’m—I’m dressed like—oh my God, I’m not dressed for a midterm, all of my pencils and paper and my calculator are in the locker, this is—”

“Breathe.” Suddenly, Hansol’s standing in front of him, with an amused smile and also a few inches on Seungkwan, which he finds very distracting and awful. “Take the blazer off and borrow my sweater if you’re so worried about being ostentatious,” he says, slow and careful. Seungkwan has nothing to follow but the gentle cadence of his voice. “You can borrow my pencil case and my calculator, I’m just here to finish other homework.”

“In the most depressing study room ever?”

Hansol’s grin turns crooked. “No one’s ever interrupted me down here except for today. It makes breathing fresh air feel even better when I get out of here. Now hurry,” he says, tilting his head toward the clock.

He’s still harried, but Hansol’s calmed him down enough that he throws off his pink blazer and unbuttons the top button of his shirt so he can breathe a little better. Hansol tosses him the forest green hoodie, which he pulls over his head without thinking. The smell of the hoodie calms his second round of panic—sweet and honeyed, metallic in a way, spicy in another, not so much calming him as it does redirect his energy.

He shoves his head through just in time for Hansol to start talking again. “I’ll get your number from Seokmin-hyung to get my stuff back, since I’m about to leave for work,” Hansol says, clearly amused as he holds out two pencils, one pen, an eraser, and a calculator—all of which Seungkwan takes and jams in the hoodie pocket. He checks his back pocket and thank _G_ _od_ he made a habit of bringing his student card around because of how many times he’s run late from shifts.

Hansol’s _very_ amused _Good luck_ is the last thing he hears before he dashes out of the study room.

* * *

Chan’s sort of hard to miss in the lecture hall, more so when he raises an eyebrow at him as he bursts through the door. There’s still three minutes left, and looking at Chan’s incredulous look also means finding the empty seat behind him, which he dashes for.

“Hyung,” Chan says, swiveling around in the chair. “What the hell—”

“Internship,” he says, panting. “A meeting went overtime.” He tries to fix his hair as the proctor comes over to confirm his student information, and when she walks away, Chan is _still_ staring. “What, are you going to cheat by turning your huge-ass head around to stare at my paper?”

“No.” His grin is wide. “I can’t believe you had the audacity to give me an excuse about being a good little government page boy when you nearly showed up late looking _debauched_. And wearing Hansol’s sweater? Really?”

His blood runs cold. “How did you—”

“All of SVT’s sweaters have names on the back of them, dipshit.”

“I am your _hyung_ ,” he says, but it’s second to the sinking realization that yes, Specialized Videotape Technology’s triangular logo greets him on his chest as he looks down. He grabs the back of the sweater. There, running along the bottom edge, is the name _Hansol Vernon Chwe_.

He’s part of the university’s A/V team, too? Seungkwan knows from Mingyu that SVT is small, so there’s a one hundred percent chance that he knows Mingyu—how many cupids does Hansol _know_? With his mouth open in shock, he sticks out a foot to start terrorizing Chan in front of him.

Chan only laughs, avoiding every single kick. “Just saying, hyung. Your rosy red cheeks and boyfriend sweater are incriminating.”

He can’t even get one last word in before the prof calls their attention to start.

The midterm is _okay_. Seungkwan was never good with numbers, but he’s okay enough that he’ll probably end up with an average grade. Unfortunately, his struggle with numbers means that he takes the midterm to the end, double-checking his last answer at 7:30pm sharp and handing it off with more exhaustion than tiredness.

Chan left long ago, so he walks out of the lecture hall alone after grabbing his things from his locker, not even bothering to change into sweats before dragging himself into the chilly autumn air. He’s grateful for the sweater, despite Chan’s teasing; it’s not quite warm enough, but it’s warmer than what he would be wearing earlier.

With a weary sigh, he sits down on a bench and fishes for his phone. He needs to register overtime tonight, and approval normally takes about ten minutes, which isn’t enough time to grab a bite to eat at all. He punches out a text message before bringing his knees up to his chest, hugging himself.

During shifts, the effects of weather are less pronounced, so cupids can get away with wearing comfortable clothing—unless they’re Seungkwan, who takes the opportunity to dress up as best as he can. Off the clock, though, he’s awfully cold.

He pulls up the hood, and the sage and honey and citrus smell wafts into his nose again. He takes a deep breath to calm himself, and that same feeling Hansol’s help gave him earlier—not necessarily of calm, but of organization—relaxes him just enough to prepare for the task ahead. Things should slow down and fall into place once he officially graduates and only has his full-time position in Reinforcement of Social Harmonics. All he has to do is get through these last six months.

The excitement of the last twenty-four hours is catching up to him. When he breathes out, he can see his breath rising as the night continues on. He stands up and stretches. Might as well get his feet moving.

There aren’t that many students out and about; most are in classes, at dorms, or eating somewhere else. It’s a quiet walk, and Seungkwan occasionally overhears a conversation between passing students. The courtyard with the clock tower is a bit livelier, echoing with faint live music; there’s another student activity taking place, with some students from the Environment faculty handing out hot chocolate as some sort of student initiative.

He grabs a hot chocolate and stands in the shadows, watching the live music from afar in case he gets a text back, when he hears someone shout, “What are you doing here, you troublemaker?” Everything echoes by design in this courtyard; it makes for great acoustics and also for having people from fifty feet away across the space to hear your conversation for some reason. He doesn’t think much of the voice until someone runs straight into him with so much force that he nearly falls forward. He would lose his balance if the person wasn’t holding them so strongly. “Skipping work? That’s unusual—”

In his peripheral, a face peeks around his shoulder, and Seungkwan freezes. The person stares at him, also frozen, and Seungkwan knows that he’s definitely not shocked for the same reason that _Choi fucking Seungcheol_ is.

“You’re not Hansol.”

Seungkwan shakes his head, trying very, very hard _not_ to scream. “I don’t look anything like him,” he manages to get out.

His phone vibrates, and he peeks at it as Seungcheol untangles himself from this mess. One from an unknown number that he skips over to read the one from Locus Amoenus. _Overtime granted. Begins in five minutes; lasts one hour._ Fuck, that’s less time than he thought to get ready.

In the middle of his panic, Seungcheol says, “He doesn’t really seem like a pink-chinos-in-autumn guy, actually, you’re right. Then who are you and what are you doing with his SVT sweater?”

He looks up, ready to extract himself from this conversation, but Seungcheol’s grinning at him in a really weird way. “I’m not _anyone_ —who are you?”

Seungcheol barks out a laugh before giving his name, and Seungkwan is thinking, _oh, if only you_ _kn_ _e_ _w._ “SVT’s tiny. There’s like, six of us total, and Hansol never mentioned anything about…” He waves a hand with a grin, like he’s implying the same thing Chan was. Seungkwan feels his face heat up, and as he opens his mouth to start arguing against it, Seungcheol’s smile just gets wider. “Sorry for scaring you, uh—”

“Seungkwan,” he says, trying not to grit his teeth. He looks up to the clock tower. He _knows_ it’s accurate. Locus Amoenus keeps it that way; it’s the loudest thing in the vicinity and a great way to keep track of shifts. “I’ve actually gotta head off to work, so—”

“Right, I won’t keep some random stranger here. But don’t be a stranger, especially if you’re Hansol’s…”

“ _Friend_ ,” he clarifies. Seungcheol doesn’t buy it, he’s sure. “Hansol is a _friend_ —Bye, hyung, I’m leaving now.”

He runs off before he can try and talk himself out of this with any more tact, and also because he has two minutes left before his shift starts. He should just be fine with a bathroom; his quiver and bow will appear to him, and he can give himself _one_ casual Friday, even if it’s Tuesday.

When he’s out of the courtyard and Seungcheol’s sight, he rounds the corner and dashes into the first building, finding a bathroom and locking it—just in time for the familiar growth of wings, his equipment by his side. He pulls the hoodie over his head again, flying through the building as fast as he can to where Seungcheol just was—

And he’s gone. He’s _gone_. Seungkwan already returned the prototype radar, and it’s a bad time to realize his natural homing is still frazzled from the midterm and sleep deprivation; the live music and all the students here when it should be a quiet night is masking Seungcheol from him. Through his frustration, he gets a sense of _one_ of them, so he follows it, cursing under his breath.

Instead of landing with Seungcheol, his senses take him halfway across the city to _Joshua_ instead, in an equally busy but somehow less chaotic environment to him. Upon closer inspection, there are dozens of strings moving around, already in place; things here are already finished. No wonder he wanted to land here.

Here, he makes a second discovery that’s about to make his life ten times easier.

Among dozens of strings of every color, Joshua sits in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant, packed with businessmen and students alike. He’s perched in a bar stool in front of the small counter and chatting up the server, who is none other but fucking _Hansol_ _Vernon Chwe_.

Seungkwan cheers with relief. With Seungcheol’s mistake earlier, he’s glad that he didn’t have the time to wipe Hansol’s memory, because now he can convince him to get both of the lovebirds in one place. Besides, he’s willing to help, and he’s going to lose all recollection of this event, so it won’t matter if Seungkwan just uses him, right? It’s fine, because Hansol caused him all this stress in the first place.

But as he flies into the restaurant, he can’t deny the feeling that it’s wrong. Seungkwan’s not that kind of person; he doesn’t even know why he’s so _adamant_ about this line of thought. He doesn’t want to use Hansol as a means to an end.

Inside, there’s nowhere for him to stay and not run into someone. It’s packed, but cozy and warm, like he’s wrapped himself up in a blanket for the winter. As comfortable as the aura is, it doesn’t change the fact that he’s a half-ghost, stuck inside Joshua and some other person beside him. With a wince, he checks the clock. He’s got enough time to dash if he needs to. He doesn’t wanna materialize here.

“You’re a brat,” Joshua jokes as Hansol scribbles something on a notepad. He rips the page out and smacks it against the window, sticking his tongue out before he moves on to another customer. It’s fun just watching him, animated and earnest in a way that charms everyone, whether he tries to or not. The restaurant in question looks like a family business; the man behind the main grill has the same sparkle in his eyes as Hansol when someone else in the kitchen tells a joke that Seungkwan can’t quite hear.

Joshua scrolls through his phone idly, and Seungkwan looks away. It’s funny to consider that cupids adhere strongly to respecting other’s privacy when their job involves guiding people without their knowledge, but it’s of utmost importance that they never go anywhere they’re supposed to. For the most part, that means peoples’ houses or apartments, but it means that they also shouldn’t go through personal matters. Seungkwan’s nosy—peeks at his friend’s phones even when he’s visible—but it’s different when Joshua’s not just texting a friend or looking at social media.

He caught one glimpse of an update about his mother’s health and decided he didn’t need that information. He’s flying out at the end of the week, finishing his final semester and working on his Master’s remotely because of extenuating circumstances. That’s all Seungkwan needs to know.

As he looks away to give Joshua some privacy, it strikes him that Seungcheol can’t be that far from either this area or the clock tower courtyard. Seungkwan should be looking for him to get this done once and for all, but exhaustion overtakes him so acutely that he ends up taking out his phone and canceling the rest of this overtime for a good night’s sleep instead.

 _Thank_ _G_ _od_ , Jihoon texts back. _I’m overriding the automated job shit to tell you thank God. Take the rest of the time to fly around or whatever you like doing._

Seungkwan’s sigh melts into the chaos of the restaurant. He folds his arms on the counter, careful to recognize it as a different entity so he doesn’t just fall through, and lays his head down on them as he watches Hansol. He doesn’t know why, but there’s something hypnotizing about his movements—the way he interacts with everyone like they’re the only person in the world, the way his smile never fades. Everything about him is intense, rain or shine.

The party next to Joshua clears at the same time Hansol’s father tells him to take a break. He drops into an empty seat next to Joshua with servings for both of them, and Seungkwan floats over to the other side of the counter, his wings lazily folding behind him as he watches over them.

“Where’s Cheol-hyung?” Hansol says with an mouthful of food.

Joshua laughs, covering his mouth. He must be used to that particular habit of Hansol’s, but it doesn’t stop Seungkwan from making a face. “We already met up, what do you want?”

“For you two to actually kiss before you leave for the next four years?”

“Wow,” Joshua says in English. And then he continues in English, which Hansol easily follows. Seungkwan is very, very lost and also very, very intrigued by the way their dynamics change just _slightly_ in another language. He watches with fascination as they seem more familiar with each other, Joshua becoming less of a hyung and more of a friend. Hansol smiles a little wider, but there’s something a little sad behind it. Joshua has that same look in his eyes.

When they don’t stop speaking English, Seungkwan decides he really _will_ call it a night. Despite Jihoon’s words, he still considers using the last five minutes to scour the city between this restaurant and somewhere safe on campus—he feels like he’s intruding on something private, and it’s the same principle as looking away from Joshua’s phone.

As he unfolds his wings again, he hears his name.

“Seungkwan?” Joshua asks; the Korean name makes them both switch back, the syllables of the name more familiar in a different tongue. “Mingyu’s friend at the government internship thing, right?”

A realization dawns on Hansol’s face. He’s so easy to read. “I know him as Seokmin-hyung’s roommate, but yeah.” For the first time, he ducks his head when he smiles, and the action makes Seungkwan’s heart skip a beat; all night, Hansol’s been grinning wide. Even earlier today (and it felt like so long ago, now), his amused smile was confident. This one is different. He’s talking about _Seungkwan_.

It’s the sweetest smile he’s ever seen in his life, and all at once, the full gravity of the fact that this smile should belong to someone that isn’t Seungkwan weighs him down.

Joshua seems to catch on at how unnatural the smile is for him. The corner of his lips curl upward, and he nudges Hansol. “Okay. First off, I’m happy for you, but from what I know of you two, you’d be arguing _all_ the time.”

He’s not entirely wrong. Seungkwan snorts; he can hear it, now that the restaurant’s quieter and waiting for the next rush.

The smile drops from Hansol’s face instantly. He looks away from Joshua and up at _him_ , eyes wide and _startled_. He makes direct eye contact with Seungkwan. He can _see_ him right now; it frightens Seungkwan that they’ve known each other for just about twenty-four hours and he can recognize the clarity in Hansol’s eyes.

This isn’t an uncommon occurrence by any means. His father’s family was the one with cupid blood and his mother had not a single inkling of the entire operation before meeting him, but he knows that his mother can see his father during his shifts. Naturally, Seungkwan and his sisters see him.

None of this explains why _Hansol_ _can_ _see him_ _right now_ , unless they were tied. Which is _impossible_.

“Vernon?” Joshua almost sounds like he’s about to switch back to English. “Hansol? You look like you’ve seen a ghost, man.”

Hansol shakes his head, and the clarity is gone. He’s not looking at Seungkwan anymore, looking through him instead. “Don’t worry about it,” he mumbles. Red rises to his cheeks. “I thought I saw something.”

“So you _did_ see a ghost. The restaurant’s haunted.”

“Ghosts are a good sign here, hyung,” he says with a grin, but he casts one last glance in Seungkwan’s direction. He doesn’t land anywhere solid, like he’s searching.

Seungkwan flies away with his heart in his throat.

* * *

He doesn’t even remember falling asleep and landing in his apartment, but it’s midnight now, and the uncomfortable position he took when he flopped on the couch is seeking revenge. His sleeping schedule is fucked. At least that was his last midterm; he can focus on the three or so days he has left to tie up Seungcheol and Joshua.

Seokmin walks out of the bathroom as Seungkwan lifts his head with a groan. “Eat something before you go to bed again,” he says, walking over to him and ruffling his hair.

“Hansol knows both of the people I’m trying to track down.” He doesn’t attach any emotion to it. He doesn’t know which one he wants to express or if he wants to talk about any of the things he felt when watching Hansol. “I’m just going to ask him. Might as well use everything I got before we have to wipe him.”

Seokmin’s hand drops to his shoulder. “You seem upset about that.”

The problem was that despite doing his best to keep emotion out of his voice, he couldn’t hide one he didn’t even know he was feeling. He makes a _pfft_ noise. “Hardly. It’d be good to get this stress over and done with.”

“Are you sure?”

He looks up at Seokmin. He’s got a sharp intuition, but always doubts himself. Seungkwan doesn’t want to be another reason he doubts himself, but he is really, truly just stressed. It has nothing to do with Hansol and his shy smile, nor the fact that Seungkwan is a romantic and would rather he smile for the person that The Book says would be good for him, even if it does something weird to his heart rate. “I’m positive. I’ve been stressed and sleep deprived. Midterm today too, remember?”

“Mm. I forgot to check on you two to see if Jeonghan actually tied you,” he says, shifting the topic away. “Sorry, things were a little busy. You know how I get in subways, too…”

“It’s okay, hyung. It doesn’t matter if Jeonghan somehow managed to tie us. Hansol already knows too much, he’d need to go into Locus Amoenus at some point—”

Out of nowhere, Seokmin hugs him. He didn’t realize how much he needed it, and he sinks into the warmth and squeezes him back. Seokmin gives the best hugs. “Nice sweater,” he mumbles, but Seungkwan can hear the smile in it.

His entire body heats up. “I’ll tell you tomorrow. Or whenever you decide you’re not going to laugh at me.”

“I would _never_.” Seungkwan rolls his eyes, but he still feels a little colder empty when Seokmin breaks the hug. “Get some rest, okay? The past two days have been stressful. You have a plan now!”

“I do.”

“So, go text Hansol.” Seokmin’s eyes curve up into a smile. It sounds like he’s implying he text Hansol for fun and not for work.

 _From:_ _Unknown number_ _[4:02pm]  
__Good luck  
__Seokmin-hyung gave me your number  
__I’m working tonight but we could meet up some time tomorrow?_

 _From:_ _Unknown number_ _[9:33pm]  
__Were you  
__At the restaurant?_

He saves Hansol’s number as he mulls over what to respond. _Yes,_ _I was there. Yes, I saw you being cute. Yes, you did see me_. He decides that none of these responses are actually any good and ignores answering the question altogether.

 _To: Hansol [12:49am]  
_ _sure. my shift’s from 6pm to midnight tomorrow_ _, so before that  
_ _i want that blazer back. it’s cute_

 _From: Hansol [12:55am]  
_ _Deal  
_ _I can’t rock pink as well as you_

Seungkwan searches for his usual answer, somewhere between over-the-top recognition of a compliment and a more muted embarrassment, but neither seem satisfactory with Hansol. He’s just too _sincere_.

 _From: Hansol [12:56am]  
_ _If that study room at 2pm works for you it works for me  
_ _You didn’t answer my other question_

So much for ignoring it. There’s no point in telling him anything but the truth at this point. He can already tell after such a short amount of time: Hansol wouldn’t take bullshit. But he _will_ hear Seungkwan out.

 _To: Hansol [12:58am]  
__i’ll tell you tomorrow, then. i need a long beauty sleep.  
__let’s meet up earlier._ _also_ _somewhere less depressing_

* * *

He doesn’t have classes on Wednesdays, mostly because of Locus Amoenus, but also because he’ll begrudgingly admit he needs the break. He sleeps in, takes his sweet time with his skincare routine, and wears the nicest outfit he owns that works both on campus and when he’s flying around.

It’s chilly today, and he eyes Hansol’s sweater. It was _really_ warm, but—there is no but. This is a stupid idea. They’re hardly even friends, and it would keep giving random people around campus the wrong idea if he wore a sweater with his name on it. He’s got so many options for warmer outfits, too, why is he even considering it?

The next time he needs to go to Locus Amoenus, he’s going straight into the lab and strangling Jeonghan. _Love Lab_ his ass—Seungkwan’s got nothing but irritation to bring to Omnia Mutantur. He and Hansol don’t fit well at all. If Jeonghan’s going to match him up with someone as a joke and pretend it’s possible for cupids to get tied, then he should at least have picked someone that could put up with him and his easily stressed nature, because even _he_ knew that he was a handful at times. He needed someone that would listen to him. Someone that did their best to understand him in the same way he wanted to understand the people he cared about.

Someone like… like _Hansol_.

Seungkwan laughs out loud at the thought. Total placebo effect. He won’t let Jeonghan’s prank take Hansol’s rightful soulmate away from him—and he doesn’t know why Omnia Mutantur hasn’t digitalized the soulmate-matching process yet, either. It feels like the easiest thing to do, reading names and basic information off some centuries-old magical tome and adding it as part of the interface or whatever. But then again, it takes an awful long time to perfect any of the technology they come up with.

Everything aside—he’ll meet up with Hansol, tell him to help with the job, and shoot Seungcheol and Joshua. After that, he’ll bring Hansol to Locus Amoenus and wipe his memories and fill out the long-ass paperwork, the only bright side of which is that it’s shorter than Cross-Continential. Then, he’ll peek in The Book and match a squeaky-clean Hansol to whom he rightfully belongs.

Easy as that.

He already knows the plan. It’s incredibly simple. What he’s _actually_ doing is stalling. He doesn’t know why. He still has half an hour before he meets up with Hansol, but a restless energy thrums from his heart to his fingertips, and as he looks at himself for the umpteenth time in the mirror, he realizes there’s a whole pile of abandoned outfits on the bed and he’s somehow in a different one than thirty seconds ago. What’s he nervous for? The stress is almost over. Hansol started this mess, anyway. He gets to help finish it.

He takes a deep breath in, and his rib cage shivers with something he can’t restrain anymore.

* * *

It’s illegal for anyone to be in the clock tower other than the cupids. If anyone were to question it, they’d receive some bullshit answer about it being unsafe, since it’s a bazillion years old, but Locus Amoenus Seoul keeps it in perfect condition. Like most of the cupids’ haunts around the city, the place was built for them to fly in, but on the occasion that they have to get here off the clock, there’s a set of locked-off underground tunnels starting just outside of campus.

The locks are, of course, placed by Reinforcement of Social Harmonics. There’s nothing magical about them at all. Hansol must’ve just wandered in because whoever happened to be here last forgot to lock it behind them.

No one ever likes using the tunnels. Seungkwan hates the thought of them, gets shivers recalling the few times he’s had to fly underground. The clock tower was a good idea in theory, but he’d forgotten that Hansol can’t just fly up there. There’s still time to change locations and meet somewhere else, somewhere with wide open space and a sky that he can see—but Hansol shows up just as he’s about to call it off.

“The tunnels are your idea of less depressing?” Hansol says it like a joke, but looks like he regrets it when Seungkwan glares at him.

“No. Actually, they’re—they’re the worst,” he says, swallowing. He wipes his palms on his jeans. “Can’t fly out of them, they feel too small, and you can’t see the sky. Cupid’s worst nightmare.” He lets out a laugh to ease the tension, but it just makes him sound even more high-strung. (Which he is.)

“We can go somewhere else—”

“No. We’re going up to the clock tower,” he decides, pivoting stiffly on his heel and walking without waiting for Hansol. His breathing follows one rhythm, his heart another, his footsteps yet another—and somehow, through all of it, Hansol’s pace is steady beside him.

The tunnel to the clock tower is an offshoot from other campus tunnels and disguised as maintenance that no actual maintenance people can get to or even bother with. He’s seen all the posts from Architecture students talking about the mysterious door that doesn’t show up on any blueprints made available from plant ops and make joking plans to barge through. They’d find nothing but a bog-standard clock tower and a very boring walk, unless they were claustrophobic.

“It’s really just open?” Hansol asks when he steps through.

“It’s not supposed to be.” He takes a step forward and then pauses, doubling back to lock the door. “People just don’t wander most of the time. What were _you_ doing?”

Hansol shrugs. “Wandering.”

The tunnel is seemingly endless, tapering to a dark point at the end and still it keeps going. Seungkwan doesn’t like it, and it’s not just because he likes flying everywhere, either. It’s a little less lonely with Hansol, but he’s already dreading the walk out from here.

Hansol elbows him lightly. “I’m starting to think you might actually murder me. I really thought you were going to the first night.”

“Please.” After a beat, Seungkwan says, “I don’t think I ever apologized for that.” He says it as quietly as he can, but the tunnel is long and empty. There’s nowhere to hide. Their shoulders touch. It’s too narrow here.

“You more or less proved yourself, even without bringing me back to the scene of the crime.” He breathes out. It almost sounds like a sigh. “At first, I thought I was high. Then I was just scared shitless, dude. Thanks for explaining, especially since all you do now is complain about telling me everything because it’s extra paperwork and you hate that shit.”

Why _did_ he explain? It was going to be a pain in the ass, no matter what. “I really should’ve just let you think you had a bad trip.”

“Rude.”

“But instead, I decided to be an angel with my wings and my amazing cupid uniform and explain.”

“You’re an angel now? Could’ve fooled me.”

Seungkwan nudges him, making an offended noise. Hansol’s laugh is more wheeze and silence than actual laughter, and it’s so stupid that it makes him smile. He tilts his head toward Hansol to shoot back with something else, but for just a second, he falters.

How long has Hansol been staring at him? Their noses could brush. His eyes flicker down without thinking, and then he forces himself to look away. He thinks he sees his grin get wider, but he’s not going to confirm that. He turns his nose up. “I’ve always been an angel. It’s just a shame that you bring out the worst in me.”

Complaining, running into walls, appearing where he shouldn’t be—he really does bring out the most embarrassing parts of Seungkwan. But Hansol isn’t just some random guy he keeps running into. He’s Seokmin’s friend, and he knows Mingyu, Seungcheol, and Joshua. He’s nice enough and honestly tried to look after Seungkwan for longer than necessary. And listened to him, even when none of it made any sense for non-cupids. And accepted something which should be impossible.

Hansol’s response forces the thoughts out of his mind. “Are you sure you’re not just wiping my memory so you can start over and not have half of your interactions with me boil down to frustrated swearing?”

“I didn’t even think of that,” Seungkwan mutters conspiratorially. “You’re onto something here.”

At the end of a tunnel is a spiral staircase, winding to the top of the clock tower. The trek feels long, but maybe it’s because he’s aware of Hansol right behind him, letting him lead the way. The air is crisp as they reach the peak of the clock tower, and Seungkwan breathes a sigh of relief. He’s claustrophobic, he’s positive. If he could just fly out of here without having to worry about Hansol, he’d gladly do so.

The sun is still up, so he’s careful to lie down beneath the barriers of the spire, and Hansol follows suit, lying next to him. Seungkwan waits for him to prod him to say something, but he doesn’t.

For a while, it’s peaceful.

Then, the bell of the clock tower rings once. He figures that’s a good enough signal to start than anything. “I brought you all the way up here to say that yes, you _did_ see me at the restaurant. Which shouldn’t be possible.”

“Aren’t we… tied, or whatever?”

“Also shouldn’t be possible,” Seungkwan starts to say, but his words trail off. He holds a hand up to the sky, wiggling his fingers, imagining a red string from his pinkie. He should be able to see it if it’s his own, right? “But Jeonghan—the guy that shot us—works in the lab at Locus Amoenus, he experiments with things, uses a _sniper rifle._ The audacity. There are _traditions_ to uphold.”

He shakes his fist to the sky as a joke. He feels more than hears Hansol laugh, so close to him. Hansol lifts a hand to close around his fist and put it down. “Easy,” he says, his voice light with mirth.

Seungkwan tries to pretend that the touch isn’t making his heart flutter again. “Anyway,” he says, interlacing his fingers together and resting them on his own stomach, “knowing him, he’s probably made some weird thing and tested it on me just to cause problems. So I’m genuinely sorry for getting you caught in the crossfire, Hansol.”

He turns, and Hansol’s already looking (again). Their noses almost touch (again). “Eh. I’m going to forget anything anyway, aren’t I?”

“It’s a painless process, don’t worry. But I’ll at least give you answers while you’re here, because it turns out I’m going to need your help.”

There’s something strange in Hansol’s eyes, an apprehension that looks unnatural on him. But when he blinks, it’s gone and replaced with determination. “What’s the plan?”

He goes through it all, starting with how he’s going to help Seungkwan put Seungcheol and Joshua in the same room somehow, at which Hansol brightens. His grin is so wide it blinds Seungkwan. Faster than he’s ever spoken before, he says, “I _knew_ it! But why can’t you just wait until Joshua comes back in four years?”

Seungkwan scoffs. “Have you _never_ read a romance novel in your life?”

“Nope.”

“Well, the first rule is that there are _stakes_ involved. Their love story _has_ to be _now_.”

“Why?”

Seungkwan sits up, preparing his whole rant about romance and love stories and how Hansol knows nothing—he’s ranted about this many times before—but he sees mischief sparkling in his eyes. “Are you messing with me?”

“ _No_ ,” he responds, dripping with sarcasm. His smile brightens even more.

With a huff, Seungkwan lies back down, nearly smashing his head against the concrete in his indignation. “Ow.”

“Lift your head.” He does, and Hansol stretches out his arm. It feels natural to lay back on it. Comfortable.

“ _Anyway_ _._ ” He starts up again, like lying on Hansol’s arm hasn’t brought them closer together, like they’re not reaching dangerous territory. “Stakes and all that. It’s gotta be _now_.”

Hansol shifts, tilting his head. “I’ve only known you for three days, but I’m going to go out on a limb here”—Seungkwan can feel his chest vibrate with his low voice, how close are they?—“and say that there’s paperwork involved with Shua-hyung leaving the country for four years and you just wanna get this done.”

Seungkwan inhales sharply through his teeth. “You just have no sense of romance.”

“Yeah, maybe not.”

Seungkwan brushes it off to tell him to get Seungcheol and Joshua in the same place. It’s just his luck that the drama club is having their first tech rehearsal tonight (really, he should have known that because of Mingyu). SVT will be there, and according to Hansol, Joshua still shows up from time to time, despite having to give up his part due to his sudden move.

“I can probably bribe him with food tonight,” Hansol murmurs. “Or play up the dongsaeng card and tell him it’s my first tech rehearsal with SVT and I need emotional support.”

“Is it?”

“No, but he’ll probably think it’s funny enough that he’ll show up anyway. Maybe I’ll say that Cheol-hyung needs emotional support.”

“But can you get him there?”

“Yeah, he’s pretty easygoing. If not, I’ll tell you where he is.”

The rehearsal is right in the middle of his shift tonight. It’s felt like an eternity that he’s been working on this. It feels anticlimactic for it to be so easy, but at the same time, nothing about this was easy. “Cool, that’s a plan, then.”

“Yep.”

“Then tomorrow, I’ll confirm this job is finally done, check your name in The Book, and see who you’re actually linked to so I can stop stealing them from you. You’re too sweet,” he says without thinking. It’s true, but it makes his heart twist in a weird way. He pushes it aside. He’s a professional first. “I’d rather you get who you deserve once your memory’s wiped of all the cupid stuff.”

His words settle over the two of them, and then, nothing. Usually, Hansol is reacting—humming, nodding, laughing at everything he says. It’s too quiet now. Seungkwan steals a glance, and like always, Hansol’s already looking at him.

Their noses _do_ brush this time. At some point, Hansol’s arm has curled over his shoulders, and Seungkwan’s lain on his side, half on top of Hansol. He’s warm and comfortable and _familiar_ , so familiar that Seungkwan doesn’t even mind lying on top of him like he does with his friends or family.

Hansol’s lips part, but he doesn’t speak for a second. Seungkwan looks down at his lips and then back up to his eyes—has to _force_ them back up—but he can still see his lips curl up at the corners. Like he’s trying not to smile. It’s not sharp enough to pierce the sadness from his eyes. “Dedicated to the job, huh?”

Seungkwan feels too warm all of a sudden, but he doesn’t want to get up and create distance, even though he should. “I’m not going to steal someone else’s love story. Of course I’m going to do my job.”

“But you’re not on the clock. You’re just a friend of a friend chilling with me right now. Right?”

“What are you saying?” Seungkwan knows exactly what he’s saying. Of course he knows he’s not on the clock. It’s why he can feel Hansol’s touch, spreading warmth throughout his body. It’s why Hansol can look at him and see him like he’s there without second-guessing himself.

Hansol’s grin is crooked, one corner of his mouth lifting higher than the other like a challenge. He stares at Seungkwan dead-on, and that intensity is enchanting when he’s this close. “I’m just saying. You made it very clear that what you guys do is really just a bunch of suggestions. Very strong suggestions, but still suggestions.”

This is a mistake. Even if Hansol won’t remember, _Seungkwan_ will, and the fact that Hansol is in his _friend circle_ means that if— _when_ Hansol shows up with his actual soulmate one day—

“I don’t know about you, Seungkwan.” Hansol’s eyelashes are long, _long_ , fluttering with each blink, and Seungkwan feels like he’s about to drown. “But if our positions were switched, I’d try and fight just to keep you, I think.”

He feels jittery. He feels sick. He feels heart palpitations thunder from his chest up to his ears until they deafen him. He must be shaking as Hansol traces his jaw with a finger from his ear down. His thumb sears a mark against his chin, moving up higher until he’s touching Seungkwan’s bottom lip.

This is a mistake. Oh, _G_ _od_ , this is a mistake, but Seungkwan closes his eyes with a shudder, and he tilts his head and he—he _misses_. He tries to kiss Hansol and he _misses_ , landing on the corner of his lips instead.

He freezes there, pinching his lips together out of embarrassment, and when Hansol starts laughing, it’s _over_. He slumps down, burying his head in the crook of Hansol’s neck and screaming out of frustration, and Hansol laughs his breathless laugh.

When he lifts his head, determined to try again, he’s grinding his teeth so hard that it hurts. Hansol, on the other hand, looks up at him like he’s waiting for Seungkwan to try again and would wait the rest of his life for it.

The smile in his eyes drains the tension from Seungkwan’s shoulders. It shouldn’t. Then again, there are a lot of things that shouldn’t happen. Most of all, this: when they try to kiss a second time, it connects.

* * *

At quarter to three, Seungkwan sighs and sits up. Hansol has to get ready for the first tech rehearsal to kick off hell week, but Seungkwan doesn’t know what to do with himself anymore while he waits for his shift to start. Homework, probably, but that feels like such a faraway concept right now.

Hansol nearly drops his phone on his face sending a text to Joshua. The little scrunch of his nose as he catches it in midair is more charming than he probably realizes, and Seungkwan is so _fond_.

All the better for him to get matched with his real soulmate, then. Seungkwan sighs again. He might be a hopeless romantic, but he’s not hopeless enough to ruin someone else’s chances with Hansol, who’s patient and kind and mischievous and—everything. There’s no point in listing it out.

Once this whole mess is over, he’s calling his mom and asking about how she and his dad met with all of the specific cupid complications again.

Their walk out of the clock tower feels shorter and longer at the same time. Hansol holds his hand without a word the second he sees Seungkwan hesitate at the start of the long tunnel. He wishes he wouldn’t do that, because his hands are clammy and sweaty and disgusting, and—whatever. He likes it. He likes _Hansol_. His wings don’t have room to spread here, but it doesn’t feel as hard to breathe as it should.

He tries to convince himself that admitting it is the first step to getting over him.

They part ways after sneaking back into the main tunnels, and Seungkwan spends a little too long watching Hansol leave.

He wanders around campus aimlessly, eats an early dinner, and tries to set a schedule for his schoolwork next week. At six in the evening, he finds a single-stall bathroom to privately receive Cupid’s Blessing, cleans up the last of his backlog, and flies over to the smaller of the two theaters on campus.

All of SVT are already there and have been for a while. The actors aren’t due to show up for another half hour, so Seungkwan hovers near the ceiling of the auditorium. He’s not dressed brightly today, changing into comfortable neutrals for once—so he’s just as shocked as Kim Mingyu when he nearly flies into him standing on a twelve-foot-tall ladder, tightening the clamp on a floodlight.

“Holy shit!” Mingyu screams suddenly, and as much as Seungkwan has a vendetta against him, he is _not_ going to let him die. One of those platonic enemy things. Seungkwan grabs his arm and then, realizing that the rest of SVT are looking up at him because of his outburst, guides him to grip onto the bar.

“Mingyu-yah.” The guy holding the ladder yells up at him, clearly unimpressed. “I thought Cheol-hyung gave you explicit instructions not to die.”

“Sorry,” he shouts back, not looking away from glaring at Seungkwan. “There… uh…”

“Spider,” Seungkwan says helpfully.

“There was a spider,” he says, still not looking down.

“What, are you glaring it to death?”

“Stop, I’m taking outside if I see it again. I’m not killing an innocent animal.” Mingyu goes back to tightening the clamp. He hisses, “What the hell are you doing here?”

“On the clock.” Seungkwan watches him suffer. It makes him feel better, although he’s not quite sure what the pit in his stomach is about.

“Oh, _m_ _y_ bad, I thought you were just slacking off and visiting your boyfriend.”

He’s _irate_ that Mingyu would ever insinuate that he’d slack on his cupid duties, but the second part of the sentence cuts his prepared rant short. “My _what_?”

Mingyu ignores him. “19’s done, Wonwoo-hyung. That’s the last fix for upstage?”

“Yeah. Pink gel, then we’re redoing 7 because the director also wants it pink,” Wonwoo shouts back.

Mingyu leans down to grab pink cellophane in a metal casing before muttering under his breath to Seungkwan again. “I can only talk to you when I’m up here, you know. But do you really think I’m that stupid?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not like Hansol’s been talking about you nonstop or anything.” He sends him a pointed look, halfway between smug and confused (which is, honestly, his default expression), before climbing down the ladder.

“What—he’s not—it’s a mistake, we’re not anything.” He’s suddenly eager to explain himself. He flies in front of Mingyu, staring at him through the slats of the ladder. “Jeonghan was taking potshots at me on the clock and hit him, string and all.”

Mingyu raises an eyebrow at him. “So what, you’re tied? Didn’t you say that was impossible?”

“Who are you talking to?” Wonwoo says.

“Myself.”

The abrupt and absolutely _moronic_ answer would make Seungkwan laugh in his face in another occasion, but this is more urgent. “I don’t know if we’re tied, and I’m pretty sure my dad told me it wasn’t even possible,” he admits, floating beside Mingyu. “I haven’t had time to check, and Seokmin’s been crazy busy, too. Jeonghan’s probably in Omnia Mutantur avoiding the consequences of his actions.”

He’s left with only his own words bouncing around his head until Mingyu sets the ladder down and starts climbing it again. Seungkwan’s flying in nervous circles by the time Mingyu gets to the top and whispers, “Yeah, but Jeonghan doesn’t just _miss_.” Those are almost the exact same words as Seokmin’s (except worse, because they’re _right_ , and he doesn’t want to say they’re right when they’re coming from Mingyu). “He doesn’t shoot randomly, either.”

“Then I don’t know what he’s getting at. Hansol’s just… honestly, I don’t know what’s happening to him right now with half of a thread in him. Does it just fade?”

Sticking his tongue out, Mingyu says, “It should, but who knows with Jeonghan? Aren’t you usually the Love Lab’s guinea pig? Ask him yourself. Really could’ve fooled me, though, Hansol’s like in love with you.”

He nearly chokes on the air he’s breathing. “You can’t just say that—”

There’s movement on the stage; Seungcheol enters stage right with boxes full of props. One down, at least. “Mingyu-yah, are you almost done?”

“Two seconds,” he shouts. To Seungkwan, he says, “Time’s up, lover boy,” and he ignores Seungkwan’s indignant squawks as he climbs down the ladder and Seungkwan trails behind him.

He would fly over to Locus Amoenus right now and find Jeonghan if he wasn’t so close to finishing here. He spins on his heel in the air, intending to find Hansol and ask about Joshua, and nearly runs face-first into him the second he’s back on the ground. He wouldn’t _actually_ run into Hansol, but both of them react like they can run into each other physically.

Wonwoo notices. “Hansollie, you good?”

“There was a bug flying around,” Hansol says quickly, making a face and shaking his head overdramatically. Seungkwan thinks it’s cute, but like _hell_ he’s letting feelings get into this mix when Hansol’s half-tied state is leaving him susceptible.

“What’s with all these bugs,” Wonwoo mutters before looking back to the stage for Seungcheol’s directions. With no one paying attention, Hansol cocks his head back toward the control booth, hidden behind glass and invisible as long as the lights inside aren’t on.

He flies in, observing the entire theater as he nocks his arrow. Hansol enters a few minutes later, all business. He keeps the lights off. “I’m here to test things, so no one should be coming up here. I can see you now, Seungkwan.”

“You could see me before.” He watches with fascination as Hansol rifles through an impossible pile of messy papers to find the exact one he needs.

He doesn’t look at Seungkwan as he flicks switches on the lighting board. The stage comes to life, cycling through every color imaginable as Hansol flips through the script at a rapid pace for the bookmarked pages. Seungkwan has no idea what’s going on, but it feels like a lot more than five hours of work from the time Hansol left the clock tower and Seungkwan showed up here.

Just as Seungkwan’s about to prompt him again, Hansol picks up the conversation once more. “I could see you before, and then you disappeared. Now it’s like… I just see you floating, even when you’re quiet.” Hansol frowns before shrugging it off. “Okay. Seungcheol-hyung’s here.” He points upstage, and Seungkwan follows.

Seungcheol finishes helping backstage move boxes of props around and is now standing center stage. He walks forward to pick up a mic. “Sollie,” he says, looking up at the control booth. “How’s it look?”

Seungkwan watches with fascination as Hansol picks up a mic of his own, his warm voice echoing through the auditorium. It’s like there’s nothing else but him and the theater. “I’ll start from the top. Walk stage left once I bring up scene one lights?” Hansol goes through a numbered list; _0_ for lighting similar to house, _1_ being a complete blackout. Only faint, blue lighting illuminates Hansol’s profile for a second, and then he hits _2_.

The stage bursts with light, casting Seungcheol’s form with warmth, ending in a soft pink at each edge. He walks slowly, and it’s entrancing to Seungkwan that light can change him so drastically.

“No shadows,” someone else in a SVT hoodie shouts to the control booth, complete with a thumbs-up.

With a relieved sigh, Hansol looks back to Seungkwan, like he just remembered he was there. “Shua-hyung should be around in ten minutes with snacks. He says he won’t stay, but with Seungcheol-hyung around, he’ll be here for at least five minutes. We can stretch it to fifteen if you let me sit here right now to go through all the lighting cues so that’ll be done by the time Shua-hyung shows up. No distractions for them.”

“I’ll only need five seconds,” Seungkwan says, but he still leaves Hansol to his work to float around instead. He feels restless in a way he can’t articulate after Mingyu only served to confirm his fear that he’s at the center of yet another broken technology and Hansol just got caught in the crossfire and is now in love with him.

In any other occasion, Seungkwan would—he would be over the _moon_ , although he would only admit it under pain of death. He _likes_ Hansol. He likes _Hansol_. He tests the words and finds that they fit there. He floats above center stage, his wings spread out and beating gently. There are at least a dozen strings of every shape, colour, and size between other SVT members and the actors that have shown up, and one day, Hansol should have one of those, too.

He lowers himself onto the stage, his toes pointed. As he lands, the control booth schedules a blackout, and the house lights go up.

He’s screwed.

SVT finishes their preparations by the time the rest of the actors show up. As promised, Joshua shows up with snacks for everyone involved. Everyone involved in the production seems to know him, and it’s easy for Seungkwan to float down to the edge of the stage unnoticed by either Hansol or Mingyu.

For all the pain he’s suffered for this moment, it feels anticlimactic now that everything’s in place. It should be romantic, dramatic, and final. The lighting is warm, everyone’s friendly, and all Seungkwan’s doing is helping them along.

Seungcheol’s up in the control room with Hansol and the director, reviewing last-minute changes. Seungkwan can see them in the booth now that the lights are on. Directly in front of him is Joshua, chatting with the actors and SVT between bites of his sandwich.

It’s the end after this. He can still get to know Hansol, but he’ll be tied to someone else. What would be the point? He’s on the job. He’ll mope about it later. It’s fine. Just because Mingyu chose to be deliberately unhelpful doesn’t mean he was telling the truth. Why did he bother listening to Mingyu, anyway?

With a sigh, he reaches for his bow. He likes the dramatics of being a modern-day winged cupid. He’s even on _stage_. The control booth has been cycling through lighting for different scenes, but they’ve kept it on a perfect, soft pink one that floods Joshua in the front row. If there were ever a time to be dramatic about love stories, this would be it.

But the thought of parting with Hansol has made him more exhausted than he thought possible. When the control booth switches to a blackout again, Seungkwan checks the string tied to both arrows, nocks them, and shoots them both in quick succession. It’s second nature to him. They flow from his hand, and he watches both of them idly hit their marks in the semidarkness.

The first one soars through the auditorium, traveling a neat line into Seungcheol’s heart. He can see his reaction the second it lands; he pauses in the middle of a sentence, his eyes moving from the stage and drifting down until it lands on Joshua.

The second one lands first so that both arrows hit at the same time. It’s not necessary, but it’s a cute touch that he likes to do sometimes. He’s normally proud of his marksmanship, but his heart feels void of celebration from a job well done. Seungkwan has his eyes on Seungcheol when Joshua’s arrow lands, but he hears Joshua’s laugh taper off as he lets the conversation around him continue. When Seungkwan looks at him, he’s looking up to the control booth.

The spell lasts for a few seconds. Seungkwan puts his chin in his hands, watching them freeze in time.

Then, slowly, they wake up. Seungcheol shakes his head, clearly flustered as he gestures toward the stage again. Joshua laughs once more, and the world turns.

Seungkwan smiles to himself, although it feels bittersweet. He hops off the edge of the stage, checking his watch. He’s still got two hours left.

He floats over to Mingyu, taking care not to look at the control room where he knows Hansol must have noticed by now. Mingyu breaks away from the group after glancing at him, saying something about needing the bathroom, and he follows Seungkwan to a quieter part of the theater where he can actually talk to himself without being interrupted.

“I can’t believe you weren’t, like, doing backflips on that stage and messing around,” Mingyu says, like he’s trying to get a rise out of Seungkwan, but it just comes out sounding concerned. “Can Hansol see you?”

“Why?”

“He can, can’t he? _And_ you weren’t showing off?”

“Kim Mingyu, shut up,” he says, but there’s no heat in it. “I’ve got two hours left on the clock and my Numen Adest’s cleared. You got anything I can take over? I know you’ve taken less because of tech week.” He tries to make that sound like a jab, but he’s too exhausted.

Mingyu frowns. “No, they’re distributed evenly among the rest of the cupids. You should just rest, man.”

“How bad do I look that you’re actually trying to be nice to me?”

He snorts. “You look like Grade A shit.”

On any other day, Seungkwan would fire back. All he can do now is chuckle and look away. “Fine.”

“Don’t think the rest of us don’t see your overtime. You avoided Cross-Continental paperwork. Congrats. Seriously. Now go home and pass out. Get Hansol to bring over food or something—”

“No,” he says, his throat suddenly closing. Not here. Not now. “It’s fine. I’m going.”

“You’re not going to say bye to Hansol?”

“I’m seeing him tomorrow,” Seungkwan says, turning his head away. It’s not a lie.

* * *

_From: Hansol [7:20pm]  
__About to start_ _a runthrough_ _but I think it worked_

 _From: Hansol [10:53pm]  
__Still_ _going to_ _be here for another hour but are we still on for tomorrow?_

 _From: Hansol [12:11am]  
_ _We’re done rehearsal  
_ _Tell me if we’re on for tomorrow so I know if I can sleep in or not lol_

 _To: Hansol [12:14am]  
_ _come to the apartment at noon. i won’t have classes until the evening._

* * *

Seokmin takes one look at him flying through their front door and clears the sofa. He lands unceremoniously, and before he can even ask for it, Seokmin is on top of him and hugging him.

“Joshua Hong and Choi Seungcheol are done,” he says. “Tied. Fine and dandy.”

“Yay! But I thought you’d be celebrating more.” Seokmin doesn’t beat around the bush. He gives Seungkwan a little pout, but his eyes are sharp. “What happened? Did Hansol not help?”

“‘Hansol helped’ is the problem. I like him, hyung.” He makes a face as he says it, scrunching his nose and looking away, but pretending to be disgusted doesn’t mean that the beating of his heart stops. Heat still rises to his face, but it’s only embarrassment, nothing like the warmth of affection. “I—it’s been like, three days.”

“Like a romance novel.”

“Not helpful.”

“But it’s true. Hansollie’s nice. Don’t you guys argue a lot, though?”

“Why does everyone keep saying that,” he mutters.

“Because it’s true. You two will argue, but I also just realized that you guys would actually try and talk to each other, because neither of you like leaving an argument when you care about the other person.”

“ _Really_ not helping. Mingyu said he’s been talking about me nonstop. Now that the Seungcheol and Joshua thing is done, it’s really more of a danger for him to just… have all this knowledge. I’ll go look at him in The Book and find the nice soulmate he’s supposed to have so that his half-tied state doesn’t mean it’s _me_ he’s mistakenly in love with.”

He sounds snotty and gross by the end of his spiel. He isn’t even _crying_ , though it has to be inevitable. He’s just insufferable right now in his misery, he knows it. Seokmin holds him tighter. “How are you so sure you aren’t meant to be together? Not all names even end up in The Book, remember?”

“He’s too—too _perfect_ to not have someone else equally nice for him. He’s great at keeping a level head when I’m about two seconds away from a meltdown, and his smile is like an angel’s, and he’s weird and cheeky and I _like_ him. I saw that string absorb into his heart. He has someone waiting for him.”

“Seungkwannie…” Seokmin sighs, dropping his head on top of Seungkwan’s shoulder. “You’ve almost got a love story and you won’t accept it.”

It’s not like Seungkwan never imagined falling in love before. He’s seen some of his matches end in whirlwind romance, and he’s seen some of his first matches slowly and _finally_ get together over the course of two years. He’s dreamed of the moment he meets the one he loves: how his heart will flutter, how his cheeks will redden, how the sunshine will look different and how rainy days become a little brighter. And yes, he’s felt it with Hansol, but it’s come with a different set of problems altogether.

He knows that the second bullet Jeonghan fired went into Seungkwan’s heart, too, absorbed and disappeared, but without Cupid’s Blessing, he could see no strings. He assumed his body would’ve rejected it, in the same way his father refused to answer his question about cupids and their own red strings with a smile that seemed too sad.

“I want to be sure. I’m not getting my hopes up.” He drives away all the _what-if_ s of being tied to Hansol and steels himself. “I’m meeting up with him tomorrow and bringing him to Locus Amoenus and wiping his memory.”

Seokmin’s voice is soft. “Don’t do anything rash, okay?”

He laughs. It sounds _snotty_. “I’m only in this situation because _other_ people keep making rash decisions.”

* * *

Hansol meets him on Thursday morning. He smiles and it doesn’t reach his eyes, and it hurts Seungkwan more than he thought it could. Still, Hansol falls into step beside him without breaking the silence. He’s been like that this entire time, really; disbelieving but always willing to give Seungkwan the time of day, listen to his reasoning, and come to his own conclusions.

“So. How are the two hyungs?” Seungkwan says, shoving his hands in his pockets. He can’t stand the silence, because he’ll do nothing but think about _Hansol_.

“Not dating,” Hansol says, “but Shua-hyung stayed until the end of the rehearsal so he could talk with Seungcheol-hyung after. Last I heard, Seungcheol-hyung’s going to send him off at the airport.”

“Cute.” His voice falls flat.

The subway ride to the main governmental buildings is long and excruciating. Hansol stands behind him on the crowded car, almost as if protecting him from getting jostled around, but they don’t exchange any words.

Navigating the building through official channels to get to Reinforcement of Social Harmonics is hard enough without Hansol in tow, but at least it’s understood that anyone in the system for RSH is to be ushered through the bureaucracy without question. The office they use in the actual government building is empty, just as he expects; they never make an appearance here unless an important, non-cupid figure needs to meet with the RSH.

He walks through to the back room, where an unassuming door waits for him.

The first thing Hansol says after this long journey is “So, is this another one of those tunnels you all hate?”

Seungkwan nods once before putting his hand on the doorknob and turning it. Hansol puts a hand on his shoulder and keeps it there during the blessedly short passage into Locus Amoenus proper; when the room opens up, he takes it away, and Seungkwan wants to scream, wants that anchoring warmth back.

At least Locus Amoenus lives up to its name. It’s a strange mixture of home office and small villa, open doorways framing well-kept gardens and a landscape impossible for Seoul. Space naturally doesn’t work the way it should here, and time operates in its most idyllic sense.

Along the outer edge of the villa is a walkway, entrances with sliding doors punctuating the walls every few paces. Closest to this entrance are the lounge, Omnia Mutantur, the portal leading to where The Book is held, and Jihoon’s office. Everything else Seungkwan has only visited once or heard of in passing, like records digitization and administrative things he’s never been privy to.

Nothing greets them but the enveloping warmth of sunshine, but there are ways of alerting the cupids of guests. The sooner he gets Hansol to Jihoon, the better—but Hansol moves from his side to wander, craning his neck to look at every corner.

Seungkwan lets him. He doesn’t even move from where he’s standing, afraid to break the spell. He watches Hansol explore and breathe in the fresh air.

When he turns back to Seungkwan, it’s with a hesitant smile. “Seungkwan—”

“Let’s get it over with, then,” he says, clapping his hands. Hansol frowns, but before he can say anything more, the door for Omnia Mutantur slides open and out comes Jeonghan, scratching the back of his head and yawning, and he lifts his head. When he sees Seungkwan, his grin turns wide and mischievous.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” he croons, looking up at Hansol. “This is rare. So young for you two!”

“Oh, look, Hansol,” Seungkwan grits through his teeth. The most common reason for them to bring a non-cupid to Locus Amoenus is to officialize unions, and he _knows_ that’s what Jeonghan’s trying to get at. “This is Yoon Jeonghan. The one that shot us and got us into this mess.”

“Far from a mess,” Jeonghan says, looking pointedly between the two of them. Seungkwan sidesteps away from Hansol. “Although I must admit that Omnia Mutantur is my rightful home. No more Numen Adest for me, clearly.”

There’s something about his grin that makes Seungkwan’s skin crawl, like he’s missing something about the whole situation. But it’s almost cleared up, so he ignores Jeonghan and his shit-eating grin and grabs Hansol’s hand to drag him past the lab doorway, ignoring how Jeonghan leans against the door jamb and turns his head to watch them. “When he’s not in the lab, he’s causing chaos—let’s go, Hansol.”

Jeonghan snickers. “Come back to the Love Lab some time!”

His hands are still sweaty, but he’d rather speedwalk his way to end this humiliation sooner rather than later. He walks straight into Jihoon’s office, huffing when he sees him with his chin in his hand and smiling like he heard the commotion out in the hallway.

Lee Jihoon looks down with a stern eye, but it’s ultimately kind with a little hint of mischief. He doesn’t look much older than any of the youngest division, but Seungkwan knows he’s been around for _way_ too long like any other keeper of The Book, the ones responsible for distributing Numen Adest. He’s been around for, like, at least a century. “Seungkwan-ah.” Jihoon sounds like he’s already laughing.

“Ha, ha—okay, let’s cut to the chase. Jeonghan messed up, took a potshot at me on the job, said _oops_ ”—he adds angry air quotes—“and shot me and this random dude.” He pauses. “Chwe Hansol. He has a name. You have a name,” he says, looking at Hansol, who doesn’t say anything, prompting Seungkwan to continue. “And I’ve been busy with the Joshua–Seungcheol job, so I just explained everything to him so he wouldn’t kill me for shooting people.”

He steals a glance at Hansol again, who’s looking at him rather than Jihoon. He shrugs, as if to say _I have nothing to offer here_.

“Anyway, Jeonghan never told me who he’s _actually_ tied to, so yes, I will take the paperwork for memory wiping and amending misplaced ties now so I can bring Hansol to his rightful soulmate that’s less stress-inducing than I am and could ever be—also, if we can fire Jeonghan for doing the _opposite_ of his job, that would be good.” Hansol nudges him in the gut. “Ow, what the hell?”

“You’re rambling,” he mutters under his breath. It’s not very quiet.

“I’m _explaining_. There’s a lot to explain.” With a huff, he looks up to Jihoon.

He’s got that twisted expression that means he’s trying not to grin. The childlike mirth in Seungkwan’s suffering really takes ninety-five years off his face. He looks like he’s their age. “I’m the last person to want to say Jeonghan’s right—”

“I’m sure many people would fight you on that.”

Jihoon snorts. “True that may be, Jeonghan _was_ doing his job.” He rolls back in his chair and goes through a file drawer—looks like records digitization is still going slow, then—and plucks out a file with a date range from last week. He flips through each page, and he cackles when he finds what he’s looking for.

He slides it over to Seungkwan. “Sorry,” he says, but he sounds far from it. Seungkwan knows what this is; each cupid receives one of these weekly reports with their work distribution and other notes. He’s never seen one for someone so heavily involved in the lab, and for a second, he doesn’t recognize what he’s reading.

 _YOON JEONGHAN  
__10/10–10/17  
__3_ _9_ _OF 40 WEEK HOURS IN OMNIA MUTANTUR: APPROVED._

Below this section heading are details of Jeonghan’s activity in the lab: prototypes, both individually developed and in collaboration with other lab cupids; ideas and concepts; maintenance for existing technology. All of it is technical in a way that goes over Seungkwan’s head. It makes sense that Jeonghan’s entire section would be Omnia Mutantur business, since he hasn’t been a regular on the field in almost a year—but below all of the technological jargon is a table Seungkwan very familiar with, albeit squished into the remaining space and scribbled in with Jihoon’s messy handwriting.

_NUMEN ADEST: 1 TOTAL._

The Numen Adest section of this report is clearly haphazard, last minute, and _abridged_ , but all of the components are there: types of matches and their strings, ammunition, involved parties. In the blank next to _AMMUNITION_ is Jeonghan’s handwriting, infinitely neater than Jihoon’s and ever confident: _two bullets._ The little smiley face he tacks on to the end is the icing on top of this awful experience.

“What the hell,” Seungkwan says, letting go of Hansol’s hand (when did he grab it?) to pick up the paper with both hands and glare holes into it. Normally, the notes section is lengthy, with as much information as possible to find out ways to nudge people together or catch them in the same place.

For this assignment, however.

 _1\. BOO SEUNGKWAN  
__NOTES_ _:_ (and beside that, in Jeonghan’s writing—Jihoon’s attempts at unbiased notes are scratched out) _cute little cupid dongsaeng._

 _2._ _HANSOL VERNON CHWE  
__NOTES_ _:_ (again, with all of Jihoon’s information scratched out) _no spoilers, Jihoonie!_

At the bottom of the page is Jihoon’s final note, this time in red marker instead of the usual stamp: _SPECIAL ASSIGNMENT GRANTED. Remaining_ _1_ _hour_ _of week_ _alloted to Numen Adest._

Seungkwan’s heart beats so fast it feels like it might give out and kill him right there. Heat rises to his cheeks as he reads the words over and over again. It’s humiliation that first colors his skin as he recalls every single one of his friends’ words and their teasing, reaching its boiling point at the recollection of Seokmin’s words.

_You’ve almost got a love story and you won’t accept it._

“Cupids can get tied?” he breathes out. Any louder than a whisper and he risks making his emotions obvious, and he doesn’t even know what he’s feeling right now. When he raises his head to Jihoon, he nearly bumps into Hansol, who at some point had moved next to him to read as well.

Jihoon taps his chin like he’s trying to figure out what to have for dinner instead of about to reveal more things that are about to ruin his life. “What were you told?”

“My dad said—” He stops.

His dad ruffled his hair and smiled. Suddenly, in that memory, the smile doesn’t seem so sad anymore. It’s the same kind of smile that Jihoon has right now, that Jeonghan had when he shot him and Hansol, the same knowing smile that each cupid seems to develop when they possess knowledge that the rest of the population does.

“Oh my _G_ _od_.” Seungkwan groans. “ _Oh_ my God.”

“Because I was about to say, cupids don’t know they can get tied until they tie another one themselves, and usually, cupids shoot in a different jurisdiction so they can’t do it for their coworkers. Jeonghan’s a special case.”

“Jeonghan’s always a special case.”

“Isn’t he?” Jihoon smiles in a way that makes Seungkwan feel like he’s just walked in on his parents having sex. “Although I’ll have to talk with him, because the deal was that he would do it quietly, but his sense of timing has always been unorthodox. It’s why we keep him in the lab.”

“Is that so.” Seungkwan grits his teeth.

Completely unconcerned, Jihoon continues on. “We could still do a partial memory wipe, clear some of the more stressful things. Couples that end up in the same situation as you two did request it sometimes.” He turns to Hansol. “Usually, we don’t see the non-cupid half unless—”

“Official marriage, paperwork, yes, shut up,” Seungkwan tries to say over him. His smile is incredibly strained with the effort to contain every single human emotion that’s possible for him to feel.

“We’re not even dating,” Hansol blurts out. Seungkwan takes another deep breath. “But—no, I think I’m good on the memory thing for now.”

Everyone’s voices sound like they’re underwater. Jihoon looks surprised. “What? Really?”

“I don’t want to forget the image of Seungkwan flying into a room at full speed and landing on his ass after he collided with a concrete wall—”

“What the fuck?” Seungkwan nearly shrieks, just as Jihoon doubles back with laughter, smacking his desk. “No, you’re wiping it just for that.”

As Jihoon’s distracted, Hansol nudges him and murmurs under his breath. “Let’s figure this out where you’re not, like, two seconds away from punching everyone you see. Like him.”

“That is my _boss_ ,” he hisses.

“And you just told him to shut up.”

Jihoon cackles again, wiping a tear. “That wouldn’t stop you and you know it,” he says, apparently having heard the entire exchange anyway.

“I hate it here,” he mutters, bowing to Jihoon. He walks stiffly out of the office, down the hallway, and past Omnia Mutantur. The door is still open, and Jeonghan peeks out from one of the lab benches, grinning.

Seungkwan glares at him with his most scathing look and tugs Hansol’s hand. Hansol falls into him, surprised at the sudden action. The weight is familiar. It anchors him when he feels like he’s about to float away and burn into the skies.

* * *

Time doesn’t seem to pass on the way back to Seungkwan’s apartment. It’s only Thursday. This entire mess started _Monday_. The ride is quiet again, but this time, there’s too much for them to say. Hansol’s got work in a few hours, Seungkwan’s got class after that, and it suddenly feels like there isn’t enough time.

He nearly forgets to text Seokmin that Hansol’s coming over until they’re five minutes walking distance from his apartment, but that’s enough for Seokmin to welcome them both with open arms anyway. He didn’t even realize that was the plan. He was waiting for Hansol to say something about going back to his own place, but he followed beside Seungkwan, hands brushing but neither of them reaching to close the distance.

“Hyung,” Seungkwan says, as soon as they get through the entrance and start kicking off their shoes. “Did you—did you know we were—Jeonghan’s special mission.”

“Wait, so you two _are_ soulmates?” He looks way more excited than either of them who are still trying to process it. Seungkwan’s kind of glad that someone has the energy, because he sure as hell doesn’t. He lets himself get swept in the hug. The warmth is comfortable, until Seokmin steps away and goes through the coat closet. “Yay! I’m going to leave you two alone, go talk about it! I know you two need the space to talk, this is huge, alright, bye!”

And then, he’s out the door.

There’s silence for a few moments, and then Hansol looks at Seungkwan. His eyes are bright, almost hopeful. “I still think the soulmates thing is kinda bullshit.”

Seungkwan shakes his head, disoriented. He feels an age-old argument rise up in him, one he’s had with all the other cupids except Seokmin. “Why—”

Before he can start on a rant, Hansol kisses him. It’s a quick peck on the lips, but it’s enough to sufficiently shut him up. “Sorry, was that a bad way to break the tension?”

“The worst,” Seungkwan says. “This is my family _legacy_ ”—Hansol kisses him—“and no matter what you say about it”—Hansol kisses him, _again_ —“I’ll take pride in it. What are you doing?”

“Kissing you,” he says, like it’s obvious.

“This is really fast.”

“Sure it is. Aren’t most romance novels?” Seungkwan can’t argue with that. “It was a really weird four days, but it was fun. Even without everything, I want you to keep me around. Is that weird?”

“How have I not scared you off,” Seungkwan says, sitting against the wall and sinking down. He feels—he feels warm and light and giddy, and he didn’t realize it, but his cheeks hurt from smiling so much. “I’m a fucking—I’m a mess. You met me when I tried to jump out the highest building on campus because I wanted to throttle Yoon Jeonghan so hard that I forgot I didn’t have wings.”

Hansol sits down in front of him. “I’ve had more fun in the past four days than my entire life. And you just seem like the gift that keeps on giving. Structure is nice,” he says out of nowhere. “You’ve got your shit in order, even if you’re constantly stressed.”

“You can—don’t ever feel obligated to stay with me if it gets too much. They’re just strong suggestions—”

“We haven’t done anything yet.” Hansol’s eyes sparkle. “Breathe.”

So he does. He takes a deep breath in, and a deep breath out, and Hansol is still there. Hansol’s still _there_. “Should we start?” Then, Seungkwan says in one breath, “Take me on a date. Have a proper meet-cute that isn’t you thinking we’re about to die.”

Hansol laughs. “Seems like a tall order for you,” he says—and then, he gives Seungkwan a chance, no matter how absurd everything seems. “I think we could make that happen.”


	2. epilogue: six months later

Locus Amoenus Seoul gives Seungkwan an entire month off between finishing his final exam and his start date as an official, full-time cupid. Things should be easier from now on without having to juggle classes and with the decent excuse of _sorry you don’t see me as much anymore, I’ve got a job with the government_. As far as anyone’s concerned, he’s been interning for them for half of his university career, anyway. Hansol’s still got a year or two left in school, taking things slower as his family’s restaurant gets more traction and as he starts working on larger stage productions.

The month doesn’t mean Seungkwan’s any less busy, but he at least has time to breathe between finalizing a place to live in the coming year, on top of organizing arrangements for his family to come over for his graduation. The circle of Seoul’s youngest cupids overlaps a surprising amount with Hansol’s friends, and it’s not too hard to switch a few living arrangements around, even with Joshua moving away and Seungkwan wanting to live with Hansol. (He didn’t even know Jeonghan _knew both Seungcheol and Joshua_ , but Jeonghan absolutely knew about his assignment. He can’t even find it in himself to be too angry when their group of friends fit this well together.)

There are a lot of changes at the same time, but everything’s already in place. Hansol just helps sit him down and walk through things instead of letting him freak out, but there’s one thing he can’t quite help with. Seungkwan doesn’t know why he’s so _nervous_. He came up with this plan shortly after he told his own parents and met with Hansol’s.

The second everything got cleared up (okay, the day after, since he kissed Hansol silly), he called his parents to let them know about the longest four days of his life. Skipping the swearing, the frustration, and the one Xanax he had to take, he complained about how Jeonghan was deliberately evasive about the entire thing. His father laughed at him, which more or less confirmed the cupids-aren’t-allowed-to-know-about-being-tied stress that Jeonghan put on him for _no_ reason.

Hansol shows up beside him sometimes on video calls with his parents. His father approved enough—The Book never steered anyone wrong—but his mother, who was always skeptical about the entire soulmates thing, relaxed a bit once she saw him.

 _You seem happy whenever you talk about him_ , she said once without Hansol around. _Divine intervention or not, you two seem to care about each other a lot._

Meeting Hansol’s parents had been a spur-of-the-moment thing. Seungkwan only visited the restaurant that night because Seungcheol dragged him, some of the play’s cast, and the rest of SVT out to eat after the final show of the season. Hansol’s dad got excited upon seeing him and asked, in front of eleven whole people Seungkwan knew, if he could stay behind after the night was over so the family could chat. It was nervewracking, and he’s pretty sure he sounded like a moron tripping over his words under the attention, but the restaurant still felt just as cozy as the first time Seungkwan flew in.

After all that, he gave it about a month before asking his parents if Hansol could join them for a week in Jeju after they graduated, unable to stop himself. Seungkwan was going back regardless, but he was struck with the sudden thought that he wanted Hansol to see other parts of his life, too. He told his parents, and they said, _if you’re still together in five months_. Which he took as a challenge, but also as a joke; no one knew better than him and his family that the strings weren’t _absolute_.

But he really, really likes Hansol. And he thinks that even if they don’t last, a trip back home together would leave good memories.

Seokmin’s doing a shift tonight until midnight, so Hansol’s coming over to make dinner together and celebrate his final exam. Neither of them can cook _that_ well—not enough for a true romantic dinner with candlelight and soft music—but at least doing things together is still cute.

He’s fussing with everything in the kitchen when Hansol knocks on the door. He looks unfairly cute in things Seungkwan would never be caught dead in, and the nervousness grows tenfold. Seungkwan gets them started on dinner right away, following instructions and directing Hansol, who seems to enjoy any part of the process as long as Seungkwan is there.

As they put everything in the oven and clean up, Hansol says, casually, “You’re nervous about something.”

Seungkwan smacks him lightly on the arm. “You’re not allowed to read me this well.”

“I’m not? Bring me back to Jihoon-ssi, then—”

“Stop. And ew, just call him Jihoon.” Seungkwan hops onto the kitchen counter, and Hansol fits neatly between his legs, smiling up at him.

A breeze drifts in from the kitchen window, and Seungkwan knows that soon, the air will become stuffy with the promise of a warm spring. But for now, it’s just light enough that he can hug Hansol without overheating (at least, not because of the weather).

“I’ve been chatting with your parents,” Seungkwan finally says into his shoulder.

Hansol makes a confused noise. “Uh, okay.”

“You know how I’m going to Jeju for two weeks after graduation?”

Hansol nods.

“Once you’re done your semester, you’re joining me and my family for a week in Jeju.” He says it nonchalantly, but he’s anything but. His hands shake with the effort of keeping his breath steady. He hopes it sounds like a contented sigh, but he knows better than to try and fool him. “Only if you want, of course. But your parents said if you wanted to, they’d give you that week off between your studies and working over the summer.”

He starts talking faster, wanting all the words to come out so Hansol can respond already. “I just want you to come with me, and hang out without stress for either of us, and also I guess you’d see my family flying around. Because I know you can see Mingyu-hyung and Seokmin-hyung and Jeonghan-hyung now, so you’ll probably be able to see my dad and sister.”

Hansol is awfully quiet. Seungkwan squeezes his eyes shut and buries his head further into Hansol’s shoulder. “Or is that too fast? Am I forcing the soulmate thing? Because I like you a lot, but I don’t—like you said, suggestions—”

Finally, Hansol makes a noise—he laughs, and it’s not the prettiest sound, but it spikes through his nervousness and deflates it until he’s left draped over Hansol. “Are you done?” Hansol says, patting his back.

“Maybe.”

“Okay.” He backs up to look Seungkwan in the eyes. “Yeah, I’d love to go. In case you haven’t noticed, I like you a lot, too.”

“Oh.” Seungkwan purses his lips.

“Cupid or not, we would’ve run into each other at some point. I’m surprised it took four whole years of similar friend circles.”

“I’m usually busy,” Seungkwan mumbles. “And every one of our friends kept saying we would just argue all the time, which is I guess why they never let us become friends, but I mean. I still talk to Mingyu-hyung.”

“I’m telling you called him a friend.”

“Okay, I’m breaking up with you and retracting my Jeju offer.”

Hansol snorts. “They’re not that wrong, are they?”

“Nah.” He smiles to himself. “Besides, we always make up in the end.”

A timer dings for the dessert they’re making, and Hansol backs up, tilting his head to the fridge. “Obviously. If not even fate or whatever is going to split us apart, I’m sure as hell not going to let it be some random argument a few months from now over which way we’re hanging the toilet paper in our apartment.”

“Aw, babe,” Seungkwan says, getting a disgusted face in return.

He still worries from time to time—he can’t help it, he _always_ worries—that Hansol knowing about the strings makes what they have any less real, even though he _knows_ how all of it works. And then they spend time together in little ways like this, learning about each other and getting closer, and Seungkwan finally realizes what it means to find someone that he thinks he would fall in love with in any universe at any time.

* * *

The last shift before his month-long vacation is uneventful. Instead of flying into the apartment, he heads back to Locus Amoenus, just to _really_ make sure Jihoon’s actually giving him a month. He’s got enough unofficial vacation time saved up that money wouldn’t really be an issue—seriously, being a cupid is _lucrative_ —but everyone is a workaholic in their own way. He should’ve expected a surprise party, but he didn’t, and all the Seoul cupids in his age division bombard him as he flies in. The only one missing is Jeonghan, but again, _everyone’s_ a workaholic.

As festivities settle down and they all rest from Mingyu’s impromptu feast, Jeonghan makes his first appearance, poking his head out of Omnia Mutantur. “Seungkwannie! Don’t leave just yet. Congratulations on finishing your last exam and not being a baby anymore!”

“I was never a baby.” He pouts (which doesn’t really help his case) when Jeonghan comes up to pinch his cheeks.

“Sure, tell yourself that—I’ve got a graduation present,” he says, turning his attention to the rest of the cupids. “I’m stealing him.”

“I haven’t graduated yet.”

“It’s in a week, that’s close enough.” Jeonghan is _excited_. He’s genuinely looking forward to whatever this is, and while Seungkwan would be wary, the mischief is completely absent from Jeonghan’s face for once. “Come into the lab, come, come.”

Seungkwan’s never been in the lab proper. It’s hilariously high-tech compared to the rest of Locus Amoenus, but every room in the base holds a different surprise. He walks past other cupids that only emerged for food, bowing his head at them as they pass; everyone in the labs has been here for a long time, finding their stride shortly after doing field work and realizing what they liked doing more.

“I tried to keep this a surprise,” Jeonghan says as he stops in front of a station with scattered technology, “but Jihoonie says he already showed you the proof that I was assigned to you and Hansol, which means you saw the rest of the Omnia Mutantur logs.”

“Most of it went over my head, actually,” he admits. “I just skipped it.”

“Oh, perfect! How’s Hansol, anyway?” Jeonghan starts clearing space on the counter, moving things aside and throwing other things in impossibly large drawers below. “I got a real kick out of seeing your name in The Book. I _had_ to take it before Seokmin-ah and Gyu-yah could even see it.”

“You caused a lot of pain,” he says out of principle, although he’s happy for it, all things considered. “You know that I really like him, but I don’t wanna give you the satisfaction of knowing that you actually did something that made me happy, right?”

“Always, Seungkwannie.” He ruffles his hair. “Nothing like a real stressful situation to feel the stakes and get closer to someone. I could’ve nicked you guys during some normal time on campus, but wasn’t that fun? You guys got close, so fast! A couple I got five years ago finally started going out. You’re too impatient for that.”

He looks like he’s stopped fidgeting around his table just to chat, so Seungkwan says, “Get on with it.”

“See? Impatient.” Jeonghan reaches in to the inside pocket of his lab coat and takes out a folded piece of paper, passing to Seungkwan. With an eyebrow raised, he takes it, unfolding it while staring at Jeonghan the entire time. It’s both for dramatic effect and also because it makes his surprise even more of a surprise when he reads the paper.

Well—he _tries_ to be surprised, but any attempts to read it confuse him. The only things he really understands in the top third of the page are Jeonghan’s name and the words _Locus Amoenus_ , _Omnia Mutantur_ , and _patent_. There’s a lot of technical jargon, some weird legal stuff, but he keeps going.

Past the legalese and into the descriptions and diagrams, it becomes immediately evident what this is. With his heart in his throat, he looks at Jeonghan again. He’s practically bouncing up and down with anticipation, and for once, it’s not at anyone’s expense.

It became a joke among Locus Amoenus Seoul that their department was hopeless romantics and Jeonghan, who was pragmatic and crafty and _methodical_. Jihoon might be focused on process and results like Jeonghan, but Seungkwan’s already been to karaoke with the department one too many times to know that Jihoon goes unnecessarily hard for romantic ballads.

To this day, Jeonghan’s recruitment feels like a mystery. But maybe there’s a reason he accepted the call and underwent orientation like Seokmin and Mingyu. (Seungkwan still decides he’s the worst kind of romantic, though, because he _schemes_.) “Jeonghan-hyung,” he says. He can’t say anything else.

Jeonghan bursts out with delighted laughter and collapses on him, hugging him the way Seokmin does. It doesn’t feel patronizing this time. Not when Seungkwan’s throat is closing up with genuine _gratitude_. “I never wanna hear you say I’m not a romantic ever again. Yeesh.” Seungkwan can feel him smile against his shoulder. “I’ve heard _enough_ stories about how growing up, your dad wanted nothing more but to fly around with his family. _And_ I’ve heard enough about you wishing you could fly Hansol around. It’s been six months! How many times can someone complain?”

He feels lightheaded. “So you decided to invent an way for cupids to fly the ones they love around.”

“Eh, it’s something all of the love labs around the world have been working on.”

“The patent’s under _your_ name.”

“Sure is,” he deflects, surprisingly humble about his inventions for once. With a knowing grin, Jeonghan turns back to the lab counter, tapping a few buttons until a hologram pops up. “It’s still in prototype stage, and I know you’re visiting Jeju after graduating, but we need a few people for a test run. How about…”

Jeonghan leans closer, his eyes sparkling.

“Your parents come in to Locus Amoenus Seoul once they fly in for your graduation and test it?”

Seungkwan bursts out with laughter. “Wait, my _parents_? Not even me and Hansol?”

“You must be this tall to ride.” Jeonghan lifts a hand an inch above Seungkwan’s head, and he laughs when Seungkwan shoves him. “We’d prefer people that have been tied for a while, so, adults. But I _guess_ we can take what we can get.”

“You went through all that just to deny me?”

“Of course not. Come in with Hansol, then—I’m serious,” he says when Seungkwan gives him a skeptical look. “It’s not perfect, but technically, the only thing we ask for tests is for romantic partners where the non-cupid can see the cupid and that it’s a romantic tie.”

Seungkwan thinks about flying around with Hansol, showing him all the things he’s seen on an almost daily basis for the last two and a half years. He thinks about showing him Seoul through wide-open skies and not claustrophobic tunnels and hidden protocol. “As long as you’re serious.”

“Everything we do, we do out of love.” Jeonghan recites the cupid’s motto and shoos him away. “Now go and bring lover boy back.”

* * *

“This is familiar,” Hansol says. “Except I was holding you back instead of holding your hand.”

The wind rustles his hair, and the sun shines down on him until he glows. It’s mid-afternoon on a weekday, and the courtyard below them is bustling with students. Not a single one of them that looks up at the clock tower sees the pair sitting on the spire. “Good thing, too, holding my hand wouldn’t have saved me if I really did fall off.” Seungkwan lifts a hand to shield his eyes from the sun.

Across the clock tower, on top of the chem building, Mingyu and Seokmin sit and watch with their wings spread wide and feathers rustling with the breeze. The official reason is that in case something goes wrong, they can swoop in and catch them before they splat on the ground; the unofficial reason is probably related to the embarrassing handwritten signs they’ve brought with motivational messages about not dying.

Behind Seungkwan and Hansol, Jeonghan runs last-minute calculations with Jihoon, who’s left the office for the first time since Seungkwan became a cupid. His wings are larger than anything Seungkwan’s ever seen, and they beat behind him effortlessly as he spirals around the clock tower, shouting numbers back to Jeonghan.

It’s a perfect day for an experiment. A true one, this time, and not Jeonghan just messing with him. Jihoon doesn’t return to the spire, instead floating just in front of the pair, eyes sparkling with innovation. “We’re ready if you are.”

Seungkwan takes a deep breath in. “Hansol?”

“This is so stupid.” Hansol grips his hand so tight it feels like his bones might break.

The clock beneath them ticks until both hands pointed up into the sky, at them. The tower bells chime around them, a cacophony of carefree song to herald the noon.

“There’s no way this is going to work. So yes, I’m ready.”

Hansol trusts in him, and he’s going to do everything in his power to make sure that trust isn’t misplaced. With a grin, he gives the rest of the team a thumbs up.

To the twelfth ring, he holds Hansol tight and leaps off the clock tower, spreading his wings for the breeze to catch.

**Author's Note:**

> I know tech rehearsals/tech weeks don’t normally take place at night because they’re so fucking long (and also yes programming lighting for an entire play takes longer and the director's usually a lot more present), so just suspend your disbelief for that part, lol.
> 
> Leave a comment if you ended up liking it! >w<


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